Unnatural Life

the site is politicized female prison abolitionist convicts, currently doing time, writing about and from prison.

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unnatural-life.org had to move to unnatural-life.com mostly because those of us trying to make this thing work have been in prison for quite some time and do not have access to the internet. We are entirely at the mercy of our busy family and friends to make our work available to you.

unnatural-life is the new version of Prisoners Refined In Strategic Motion (PRISM). unnatural-life reflects both the fact that Natural Life is an unnatural sentence and that any amount of time humans live in a cage is unnatural. Our goal is to get as many interviews, essays, poems and ideas from a specific group of women in our community inside ASPC Perryville to your community. We are a group of women who choose to not go with the flow, and as such our ways and words are unwelcome in most places, and that makes us proud.

Our work is raw, unpolished, and unedited. We are not the convicts who write in ways acceptable to those who support policing. We are not the convicts who pretend that any of this shit is OK. We do not intend be pleasing to you but to give you an honest look inside our world. Once we get this back up we have much more to add!!

WRITING

Just Women

By Shajiyah Iman

Dedicated to Cynthia “Smilez” Apkaw

Just Women Part I

Women do time differently than men. We do time differently because the Injustice System has designed how we do time to maximize the profit from our enslavement. This machine that we know as the Prison Industrial Complex did not just magically come into existence. Each detail was drawn out by architects who build intricate cages designed to destroy populations, to break people in ways that bring people back to prison. Women do time differently than men because the architects seek to capitalize on every division they can exploit.

The American Correctional Association has improved a specific genre of Injustice. They have drawn up a plan that serves to 1.) Pacify those who support Prison Reform and 2.) Assure a high percentage of recidivism. There are several tactics in their strategy, but for the purpose of this paper only one tactic is relevant, Humanization.

Humanization is a tactic designed by Corrections specialists to increase recidivism. Their plan is to make convicts, and the public, feel like prison staff see us as people, not things. Humanization entails speaking to us as humanely, but maintaining awareness that we are beneath them with animalistic traits.

Training classes are mandatory for staff to be taught how to interact with us as part of this new subversion strategy. Being kind to prisoners is a tactic they will have to adjust to. They have to study, role-play different scenarios, and practice often. Some of them are aware of the detriment to society this strategy produces, but most are clueless. Most are just doing what they are required to do to keep their jobs.

Humanization entails staff on all levels pretending to be kind, and at times to pretend to have respect for us. It is a form of manipulation that is supposed to eliminate the rage of the convict, to make us more comfortable, and incentivize us to just go with the flow and stop making waves. It will bring less resistance from families, it will reduce lawsuits for Constitutional violations, it will silence calls for prison reform. And most importantly, it will increase recidivism.

Humanization, if they do it right, will cause convicts to start to see slaveholders as decent people, to believe they care about us, and to forget about what is really going on. Humanization is a brilliant tactic. The advocates for Prison Reform shout for joy when they see Humanization at work. It is terrifying.

This paper is not about non-cons. It is not about either Prison Reform supporters or Prison Administrators. This paper is about us, about convicts. It is about a very specific “us” among the convict population who will not be easily swayed by the plastic surgery to the face of the beast. We have to take care of each other while we watch everyone else we know cater to the enemy.

Humans have a tendency to re-wrap systemic abuses and re-inflict them on ourselves and others. We should strive to stay mindful of our captors Humanization tactics, and not repeat them on each other. Let us remain sincere, let us not perform fraudulent acts of kindness to manipulate or deceive others. We do not want to choke the life out of truth in the guise of maintaining peace that destroys many to uplift a few. We know peace cannot be built on foundations of deceit. We must stay honest and real. Even if the whole world calls us to water down, sugar coat, kill and bury truth.

We will look at the American Injustice System and how it destroys so much. We will try to find a way to do things differently. We will look at real situations on the yard and find ways to not repeat the evils the Injustice System has inflicted upon us, our families, and the whole of society. We can remain honest, we can remain sincere, even when everyone around us submits to fraudulence in word and deed.

Words matter at least as much as deeds. The ways the American Injustice System subverts entire communities begins with how they define things. We do not have to agree with their definitions, but we should learn their language. As we learn it we should be careful not to be deluded by their distortions. Let us see how they define the topic of this paper.

Justice – judgement involved in determining the rights and the assignment of rewards and punishments.

Just – fair, ethical.

Ethical – conforming to accepted standards of social and professional conduct.

We have to engage with those in that world in order to learn their language. Tactics of resistance begin with learning. On Tuesday, January 27th, 2025, I did some writing for Professor Graham. I call him Professor because of the lofty position he holds here in the convict world. He is an Instructor not a Professor, but those technicalities do not concern us in our world inside the wire. The distinction between Professor and Instructor is money. Some of us will not submit to that distinction. It seems like a small rebellion, to refuse to use terms defined by elite institutions, but it is not small at all. No act of rebellion is small. Every single point of resistance matters.

Professor Graham teaches very much like the few of the other Professors I have met in the last year. Another Professor teaches us that we can, and should, give new meaning to things. The academics who designed these cages have defined us, our pasts, and our futures in their own terms. We need to work together to resist the words that further subjugate us, cons and ex-cons.

I had written something for Professor Graham to send to “the kids”. We understand some of them are older but we call them the kids anyway. The kids are University students who critique our writing with big words and fancy concepts to educate us and help us write better. Their willingness to share their education with us is an extraordinary gift. It helps us learn the language of academia from those not indoctrinated into the politics of the white supremacist hierarchies of their schools yet.

After finishing the paper for Professor Graham and the kids I wanted to start reading a new book. But I did not want to read it in my own voice. I wanted someone to start reading it aloud for me. I took it to the field for our secret PRISM meeting. PRISM, Prisoners Refined In Strategic Motion, is a small collective of female convicts striving to live in a better, more just, way. We try to find ways to help each other, and ways to avoid being harmed by pigs, or the pigs-pets that wear orange but serve the beast.

Pigs-pets stay close to pigs, like and admire pigs, and consider themselves better than convicts. Some of them call themselves residents, making this their home in a creepy, new way. Arizona State Women’s PRISM seeks to give convicts a place to argue, learn, grow, express ideas and lay out grievances without restraint. An attempt at autonomy. A place where it is safe to be real.

PRISM was meeting to discuss revising our 13th edition of HTMD, Hidden Transparency of Monarch Dandelions, the PRISM underground newsletter. I asked Malayka, who was already there when I arrived, to read a little of the book aloud while we waited for others. She read a little, but it was not what I needed. She was having a bad day, which is fine and understandable. But that book excited me and I did not want to hear the irritated, disinterested tone in my mind later as I finished the book on my own.

Lynn came late. I had not thought she had come to the meeting at all because she was upset with me. I had refused to write up some capitalist, pro-prison, bullshit she wanted me to draft from her notes. Instead I had written her something based on Zapatista principles we had learned that did not suit her recidivism/rehabilitation programming agenda. She was very upset that I would not help her draft a proposal to get her funded. I have lost a lot of friends over this turning Left thing, both religious and secular. I fully anticipate losing more. She can kick rocks, too.

Several of us were discussing Critical Race Theory when she approached. We are new to this type of exploration and sometimes our discussions are heated. PRISM has no rules of engagement so learning is wild, loud, unrestrained, sometimes hilarious, sometimes hysterical.

The idea for unrestrained expression came from those of us who do not speak the language of academia. We had been disrespected in groups of those who do speak that language. We were looked down upon because we are not intellectuals by inmate residents who believe they are.

We were made to feel unwelcome in those ways superior people make others feel unwelcome with kind words, or silence or condescending smiles. We were super excited about learning new ideas, the new paths we saw opening up new worlds. We did not want to quit learning because we were not “good enough.” We wanted a place to discuss justice studies, politics, and arts without judgment. We wanted to be able to scream and cry without people feeling the need to make excuses for us.

I read once of a revolutionary who refused to work with academics. He did not even want them around him. I remember squinting when I read that, pondering, having only recently met academics. The academics I had met were beautiful, extraordinary, motivating people. I did not see what his issue was?

I did see that academics do not like anything brutal, especially brutal honesty. They need expression rounded, not sharp. Gently handed, not thrown. Peaceful discourse, not loud arguments. But that can’t be what he was referring to?

Some of us do not wish to conform to that. We like ourselves as we are. We needed a space with no rules, a lawless place of meeting where being passionate is an asset, not a liability.

Lynn sat down, having never missed a PRISM meeting since she joined. I handed her the book and asked her to scan the index for something to read aloud to us. She flipped through while the rest of us continued to talk and finally asked, “What about Marx?”

I flinched, thinking she was mocking me because of a paper I had written to display the differences between convicts and residents on the yard. That paper delineated the unique class system, and the peculiar hierarchies, inside this particular wire. I had used a Marxist model, in an amateur way, to make my point. I asked her if she was mocking me? She said she did not know who Marx was.

I understood that if she did not see the connection between my paper and Marx then she did not know why I had so adamantly refused to help her with her proposal. I felt like a complete asshole. I had dealt with her as if she had consciously chosen to strive to join the ranks of the enemy. She had not yet defined the enemy for herself.

Lynn began to read to us in a tone of discovery and excitement, I could tell by her pauses that she was bothered. That was what I needed. Thank you, Karl.

We should all be bothered as we begin to understand the depth of the biblical truth King Sulayman (Solomon) taught us, “There is nothing new under the sun.” We should all be distressed by how much we live by rote. By how unquestioningly we fall in line. By how we have been taught to see grave injustices as justice. We should be disturbed to our core. We should begin to question everything, even things as simple as the terms we use to define things, even teachers.

Teachers come in all forms in all walks of life. I was awakened to the devastating specifics of our plight in these cages by one not long ago. I was shown the links between all of us who live and die in cages all over the world and all throughout time. I have grown distressed about the women around me being here. I am increasingly furious about how things are defined in this country, and by those who get to define things. Whatever justice is, mass incarceration is not it. For anyone. Even for murderers like me.

I am not certain if there should be a comparative analysis of the worth of human lives in court rooms, even for murder cases. But they do use comparative analysis to elevate victims. Even absolute pieces of shit who are murdered somehow become saints to increase sentences. If they elevate victims, they should debase them when called for, too. If my main victim was such a colossal piece of shit that no one on earth cared if he lived or died, and my second victim was a convicted pedophile who would inevitably re-offend, then how could the sentence of Unnatural Life be just? Where is my trophy? What does this society really use to measure what they call justice? And consequentially, what do we, the women in these cages, use to measure justice?

How can justice ever be accomplished in an Injustice System that is really an elaborate, artfully deceptive sporting event? A show where this piece of evidence is allowed, but that piece is not? A theater where you can say this, but you can not say that? An arena where the lawyers and judges all know each other. They all have history together. They educate together, work together, party together. They eat together, sleep together, cheat together. We do not have a wing or a prayer in there. Pasts do not matter on their stage, all that matters to them is money.

Insight into the American way. On January 19th 1976 when I was 49 days old. I was still Carla LouAnne Brummett when the sun rose that morning. Was it just or ethical that I be sold on the side of that dark road in Indiana between the cornfields, given a new name, a new birth-date and official paperwork to erase who I had been and where I had come from. Every victim in my life is a victim of that moment. On January 19th 1976 I became Angela Maria Elizabeth Simpson when the sun set.

My trajectory was set with the setting of the sun. Recently I needed my birth certificate for court, and it made me sick. Courtrooms are display rooms of deception. There was never a certificate made with the name of my birth mother, my true birth name, or the true day of my birth. The lies have become official, rooted fabrications, history erased. Most people dismiss the truth as a lie. “Look right here, you were never Carla, your official birth certificate says Angela, see? November 29, look right here.” It is that easy to erase someone. To rewrite history.

Still there are liars who say I was never Carla. Liars who say I am not an author of my own books, essays, articles, artwork. They’ll say I did not write this. Liars who say I was never violent. Even though they are easily proven liars, some can rewrite history to match their lies.

We are property. We belong to the state. They own us. We all know there are lies in our files. Our police reports are filled with untruths, our medical records are packed with lies they can line their pockets with, our disciplinary reports are inaccurate. There are so many falsified records in the American Injustice system that it has become impossible to separate fact from fiction. And no one cares. We are slaves, our truths do not matter. To anyone. We’ll never be “worthy” of our truths. What can a slave own? Or accomplish? Nothing. They even seek to rob us of the violence of our pasts.

People should never be commodities. Some may argue that I hold in my subconscious a memory of the face of my white mother when she realized she had birthed a nigger baby. That my cells remember she had refused to hold me or feed me. And a memory of a relative who had to breastfeed me until they could sell me. I was named Carla, from my Christian Pastor grandfather Carl who orchestrated my sale. And LouAnne from the Aunt who breastfed me to keep me alive for seven weeks. If I died, they could not get paid for me, so she kept me alive.

Names matter, words matter. History matters, our individual histories and the history of the world. But we are in a place where history can be erased. History can be replaced. What really happened can be buried forever. If anyone is too bold as to proclaim buried truths they will be deemed a liar. Their ignorance should not stop expressions of truth.

This new Humanization tactic is demonstrative of the methods of the rewriters of histories. This tactic shifts the presentation of pigs who have been evil for decades suddenly speaking to us kindly. Prison staff pretending like they are decent, caring, supportive people. And pretending like it has always been like this. And worse, people who know better pretending like it has always been like this.

A system of mass incarceration built from a foundation of black people bought and sold, with whole generations born to be sold. An Injustice System so ingrained in our society that there is no real way out of being bought and sold. And the process of being bought and sold has been legitimized under the guise of protecting society.

They have put the same picture of enslaved human commodities in a new shiny razor wire frame. They have trapped us in boxes of redefined words, age old concepts with a tiny new twists. Words can unite or divide. Words build or destroy. Words limit or liberate. Teacher, Professor, Instructor. Reformer, Administrator, Master. Carla, Angela, Shajiyah. Rebel, Organizer, Criminal. Prisoner, Convict, Slave.

Words are where injustice begins. Injustice flourishes everywhere we look, it is painstakingly cultivated. Those of us who have the audacity to question the cultivators of deceit are classified as weeds that must be removed or destroyed. We are annoying, intrusive, wild dandelions fated to get the RoundUp. If you speak truth they will seek to discredit you in every desperate underhanded way they can. Do it anyway.

Is never knowing your true birth date an injustice? Is limiting the scope of good one can do because they do not buy the most expensive piece of paper an injustice? Is me hitting the pedophile with my tire iron justice? Is torturing a man who took so much from so many injustice? They angrily proclaim, “People who take justice into their own hands are criminals?” So then, they admit what we do to handle wrongs on our own is justice?

What exactly is justice? What is ethical? And do they get to create new realities as easily as they create a birth certificate, fabricated to accommodate a purchase? Can we use their language differently? Like calling an Instructor a Professor, or a Prison Reformer who rejects abolition and wants the device of slavery intact a Prison Administrator? Can we redefine words to fit our reality inside? Can we refashion meaning as a anti-capitalist, anti-carceral tool of resistance?

Ethical- conforming to accepted standards of social and professional conduct.

Ethical….Conforming, To Accepted, Social and professional conduct? According to our culture, anything less than violent rebellion/ crime would be unethical in many situations. Those 12 upstanding registered voters are not our peers, they are not from our culture. According to their own definitions their systems have nothing to do with ethics or justice.

As a spiritual person I have pondered divine justice for years. And now that I have been awakened politically, I see that we, humans, have no idea what we are doing. I will sit in a cell for the rest of my Unnatural Life and strive to make sense of what we are doing. I will attempt to understand to the limits of my capacity, and then even further. I will motivate my sisters who are also caged, enslaved, enraged to embark on this search for knowledge and understanding with me.

In these cages we wrestle with thoughts, ideas, beliefs, and contradictions. We fight against what society is, what it has done, and continues to do. American society can never be just. The foundation of this country is genocide and slavery. Such a heinous and depraved foundation cannot sprout justice from blood soaked, screaming, stolen soil.

But maybe we can develop small pockets, cells if you will, of people doing things differently? Maybe a couple of my beautiful sisters will accompany me on this journey to try to become just women, enslaved in an unjust world?

Just Women Part II

After the PRISM meeting Lynn almost tricked me into writing her evil proposal by pretending like her plan was respected by someone I trust. If that person thought it was a good idea I understood that I must just be missing something. But it did not sit well, her plan was altogether against the stated principles of the individual so I just boldly asked. She had manipulated the conversation so the person I respect was commenting on an entirely different proposal about a completely different matter. I called her on it, of course.

Later, she did something passive aggressive from a distance. She sent me a book with underlined sentences supporting the need for capitalism to be the primary objective of rehabilitation programs. I immediately headed towards her cell. I had to journey through two fences passing over a hundred cells. My family saw me en route and wanted to beat her ass too. By the time I got near her cell my independent mission had become a family affair.

Since Lynn was too self righteous to learn from an ass whipping, any consequences endured after she snitched off a beat down would be for naught. I opted to look for another way to remedy the situation that would have gotten way out of hand. Looking for new ways to remedy situations is what we are talking about here.

We are faced with what justice is, and what it is not, in multiple ways every single day. If we are not thoughtful we are controlled. It is easy to just say we are acting by instinct, or natural reflexes. But the truth is we are being controlled by programming from the very systems we hate and are learning to resist.

When someone cuts you off in traffic do you take a deep breath, or reach for your glock? If someone cuts in front of you in the chow line, do you punch them in the face, or do you laugh it off?

It seems that only one person in these equations ever stops to think, if either, about justice. We do not want to just react, we want to do the right thing. We want to be just women, but how can we be just if we do not figure out what justice is, for others, and for ourselves?

When seeking to define justice we do not want to be ignorant like the actors in the charades of courtrooms. We do not want to mimic the superficial antics of those who destroy entire generations with their games. Let us never pretend like passing choice tidbits of evidence to disinterested, preoccupied jurors could lead to any true justice. Jurors who can not imagine our lives even if they wanted to. We do not want to imitate a system that profits from agony like the U.S. Injustice System.

We do not want to lord punishment or pain over people. We do not want to be frauds who pretend to care but only want what they can get. We know we do not want money or control. But what do we want? And why? And do we want to define justice based on what we want?

Do we want justice to entail gaining truth? If so, we will fail. Whole truths are inaccessible, even to ourselves sometimes. “The whole truth and nothing but the truth” is bullshit, Your Honor. Do we want justice to entail balance? If yes, what goes into those scales? And for the love of God take the blindfold off! Have you ever put something on the scale without looking?

As we place details into scales to find justice, what conclusions do we draw on those details? Do we fraudulently make up excuses for behavior? If yes, to what end? Peace? With knowledge that peace can not be built on deceit we further the games of charades.

Do we want change? The asshole that cut you off will never do it again if you reach for the glock? That ho will not cut you in the chow line again if you beat her ass? Those criminals will stop rebelling against societal order if we put them in cages for a while. Those things may or may not be true, but they have nothing to do with justice.

Spiritual justice was my focus before I met the Politicizer. Spiritual/ Divine justice deals with what goes into those scales. Thoughts, deeds, words, intentions, associations, action and times of inaction. Living for, fighting for, dying for what matters. Or not. Spiritual/ Divine Justice is beyond what we can know in this life. It is a contemplation easy to get lost in. But I do not think it should be dismissed in these pursuits of defining temporal justice.

I have been rudely awakened, but my faith has not diminished. On the contrary, now I get to contemplate our responsibility to all of creation in doing our part to fight against injustice on a level I could not see before. Beliefs can only be evident in how we choose to fight injustice, not if we fight injustice. As evident as some injustice is, some is very well hidden. Pinning down precisely what true justice is might not be possible. But have to learn to seek justice, and define it, before we reach for the glock.

Is justice defined by what people deserve? Did your mother deserve to be hurt by that tone you used? Does America deserve what it gets? Do people deserve to sit for decades in prison? Does Lynn deserve an ass whipping? Val a leg? Robbed-snitch her loss back? Do we deserve to go to hell? If yes, to what end?

Prison Reform activists operate on the premise of their superiority to the criminal. But they do not say that. They would like people to believe they are fighting for the rights of prisoners in order to help us, to make our sentences easier, more survivable. But they do not think we are equal to them. They see us as deficient, uncivilized, deserving of the cage. We can have a pillow and some fruit, but we are animals, we must not be free. We can not be around them. But they want our cages air conditioned and painted.

I do not know if there were advocates for Slavery Reform before the abolishing of the previous version of slavery? I wonder if then too people tried to make the Injustice System more palatable while keeping the profit machine moving? Were there Slavery Reform workers who squirmed away from the seemingly impossible task of taking down a formidable, soul devouring beast? Did they feel their good deed was to make the slaves comfortable while making the enterprise of slavery appear more caring about the families it consumes?

I am embarrassed that there is such a thing as Slavery/Prison Reform now. Maybe it was Slavery Reformation that stopped slaves from being shipped to America? Maybe is was a Reformation technique to not ship new slaves, but reproduce new ones on the already owned females? Perhaps to some that was more reasonable? More ethical?

Academics will call me an idiot. What right does an uneducated murderer serving Life in prison have to comment on the prestigious field of Justice Studies and Prison Reform?

Prison Abolition has been declared non violent. By fucking who? When? And God can only know why! How dare you sit in your comfortable office and define the terms of daily resistance that happens in real time in ways you cant even fucking fathom.

Prison Reform is not a solution, it is a delay tactic that served the Prison Industrial Complexes ends. And now they have incorporated it into policy. My unpolished, official opinion is this, “Fuck reform. Get a pickaxe and down the beast.” How? You are the academics. You fucking figure it out.

We convicts sue the prison for multiple reasons. We are inside the beast and our second amendment right is taken but we still have 1, 4, 6, 8, and 14 to fire back with. Changes are made when we fight back. We get some things we need through fighting for change on the inside. But the plantation owners changing policy on how they deal with their human property does not bring the beast down. It just makes the beast prettier, which makes it more of a threat.

The segments of the Injustice System can not be cleaned up. The Prison Industrial Complex is too deformed to be reformed. It has to be destroyed, and its ashes have to be scattered, so no new slavery can be reborn.

The U.S Injustice System is about profiting off of enslaved people from among poor populations. Period. It was never about correcting, or rehabilitating. And sending people into a box to learn a thousand more crimes, pissing them off daily for several years, and then sending them back into society is definitely not about keeping civilians safer. It is about money. And while they are getting their money they can sadistically retaliate, and subvert whole peoples.

The Injustice System is designed to break us and send us out socially maimed. To give us a 90 plus % chance of returning to prison with a crime much more serious than the first. They know how to keep their money flowing.

We, the property of the state, are products on a a shelf. There is no population more capable of giving you glimpses of the deception of the US Injustice System than convicts. We live in the depths of it, slaves tethered in the bowels of the ship. We have nothing to gain by informing the public about what is going on in here. It might cost us in retaliatory actions.

Once you are awakened to what justice is not, you must speak, you must act. To be silent and sit still is to assist the beast, to further the cruelty and destruction of generations to come. It is the same for us inside.

What is the definition of justice? Balancing scales? Teaching? Correcting? Changing? Punishing? Profiting off of slavery? It is an honor to be awakened to these dilemmas that are all of our dilemmas. Since being awakened comes with responsibilities, what will you do?

Just Women Part III

Retributive Justice is a term I recently learned, it is a form of justice that is so ingrained in our cultures that it has become instinctual. Society has taken great strides towards making Retributive Justice appear to be civilized, decent, moral even. But no matter how they spin it, it is shameful and detrimental to everyone involved, the receiver, and the distributor of this fallacy, both suffer. Putting a silk hat on a pig does not change the pig.

We Muslims have a thing we do where we speak words of healing, love, peace into our hands and then move those hands over our heads, or whatever part of our body that needs healing, protection, or is in some way out of alignment. That is similar to what I am going to attempt to do with these short Justice segments.

Here in prison I am surrounded by beautiful, talented, amazing, intelligent women and we are all victims of Retributive Justice, and reproducers of it, but we do not know that, and we do not yet know a better way. But we can find a better way.

Women do time differently than men, partly because our cage is dangerous in different ways than theirs. The rapists in womens prison do not live in our cells, they have keys to our cells.

What I intend to do with these pages is try to delineate different types of justice and try to understand them in the specific context in which we live. Some smart people get annoyed with me always asking, “Can you give me a practical example?” I do that because I cannot comprehend profound global concepts if I can not see them down here at my level, in prison everyday.

As always, if you know me or someone that knows me, and you see that I err, tell me, please. I am new to these concepts but I will do my best to understand them, perfectly aware that I will screw up here and there.

Nonetheless, whoever you are, wherever you are, let us see what these four types of justice look like, or could look like, on the ground here at Perryville Womens Prison. Getting a better understanding might help us all do better in our lives, wherever we live. Understanding might help us protect ourselves and each other better. It might help us get out from under this suffocating Dominant Ill-Logic we mindlessly reproduce everyday.

There are people here who organize for the pigs. They put together pig-sanctioned events. That’s fine. Some of them are fun. But this is not that, that will be evident shortly. They have their place where some of us do not belong, and do not ever want to belong. Those events end. Real organizing does not end because an “authority figure” is not present. Real organizing does not end because someone in plain clothes is not passing out kudos. Real organizing is home grown.

As we move forward with this attempt to understand ourselves and our lives better, especially our beautiful sisters in oranges mended with tacks and thread liberated from other clothes,know that any error is mine. I err in understanding because of my capacity, my misreading of things, my misinterpretation of things I read or hear. My errors are mine, and I will do the best I can.

We are going to look at Retributive, Distributive, Restorative and Transformative Justice. We are going to find each in this environment and look at what doing things differently entails and what the short and long term effects might look like.

My hope is these brief segments will give us something to think about, something to breathe into our hands, new hopes and dreams, and whisper healing remedies into our hands and find ways to wipe them over places that hurt, in ourselves, and in our environments. If it does not work well try something else, until we find what works.

Just Women Part IV

Can you imagine a world without violence? If you can say yes easily to this question then I am not writing this for you. I am writing this for those of us who are confused by the idea of a world without violence, maybe sickened by it, or threatened by it. Since we are violent we understand that a world without violence does not want us, we will be ridiculed even more than we are now.

We cannot belong there, such a world will shun us, seek to dispose of us, we would have to kiss ass to belong there, and we will not do that, so they will crave too throw us out. We are unnatural to them, and they to us. When people speak of a world without violence, we understand that we are not welcomed there.

You are my people and I love you, and I know that you love me. Some of us have gone through wars, but at the end of a day, regardless of how spread out we are, our energy, our personalities, our strength of character and integrity set us apart. People seek us for help, for advice, for everything. We feel an enormous amount of responsibility for others and sometimes we neglect ourselves for the sake of those we love, and a lot of times for strangers. If we discuss what non violence consists of, we will see we already have been a part of it at different points throughout our lives.

When we think of non-violence we think of fakes with plastic smiles and soft creepy slow speech, ulterior motives masked with deceit. We think of that one time someone we may or may not know had to call some dogs with sweet tones to feed them steak with battery acid to get into that house. This is what prison officials do with their Humanization program. But they see us as the dogs, and they seek to rob us of far more than a standard robbery could ever yield. They come with smiles to steal our lives.

But non-violence doesnt have to be fake. We have been a part of spaces of non violence, too many times to count, we just do not call it that. Have you ever been in a house where you had to leave your strap somewhere else, even if in another room? Have you ever given or been given info of a particularly unruly trick to avoid getting in that car? Have you stopped a fight, or more than a fight, for whatever reason? Have you yourself been stopped in route to violence, or in the midst of violence, from going further by something…outside of yourself?

We like ourselves, we like our skill sets, our histories, our family units, and we like our capacity for violence. We understand that not only is our natural inclination towards violence abnormal, but so is the extent to which we can so gracefully can take it. We do not like people suggesting that we change, that we are fucked up, broken, stupid, or incapable. I have said those things about myself before, most of you said those things about me, and you know I have said some of those things about some of you. It is absurd to believe we cannot choose to do differently if we are motivated to.

The spaces of non-violence that I suggest do not demand we change. But being there will make you ponder what that could look like, and it is truly intriguing.

As we discuss what justice is, and what it is not, we might become uncomfortable. There is a thing called Relational Distance that affects all judgments. All humans react differently to those they relate to than to those they do not. Any child who beats the crap out of another child for beating the crap out of someone bullying their little sibling is getting pizza and ice cream in the Slope. But in Scottsdale parents reward their children for being rats.

If right and wrong are cultural distinctions, do we have a right to force others to live by our culture? We refuse to live by Cruz culture, as Cruz culture is a pro pig culture. Power on this Unit is sought from and distributed by pigs. It is a culture that makes prisoners into junior badges, pig-pets, and slaves carrying the whips for the masters abound. Can justice entail forcing people to conform to foreign cultures?

What is justice? What do we want to imagine “justice being served” looks like? Most of us have experienced that moment where we looked around the room at the overuse of duct tape and wondered, Does it always have to be like this? The answer is no, you can pack it up and head to the big house, you can die, or you can become a normal person, which somehow seems to be the worst option.

Maybe there is another option we were never exposed to? Even in here. An option too far out, too foreign to comprehend without effort. If you are reading this, we have been shown another way. We know from our lives, out there and in here, how trippy it is when things tie together that cannot logically do so. Some of us call that the intricate work of God, some call it synchronicity or serendipity. Whatever you call it, if you lived in the wild you learned very quickly that there is no such thing as coincidence. If there is a mathematical precision to all semblances of chaos, you reading these words is part of an equation, not a new equation, an equation some people have been working within for a long time.

We need to understand going forward that justice and vengeance are not synonymous. My beautiful enslaved brothers, sisters, nephews and nieces, what we do is straight up, good old fashioned vengeance.

We can be highly territorial and intensely protective. We are programmed our whole lives to respond in ways that serve a system, that if we thought about it, we would rather die than serve. As we grow and change and transform, we should look at Transformative Justice first, because it the highest bar, and we will compare the others to.

Just Women Part V

What justice is can only be defined by the result we expect to come from whatever we decide it is. Our goal is the hardest type of justice, Transformative Justice, because it is honest, it is ruthless. Transformative Justice is not for pussies, and it seeks to rectify everything we know is off in the standard way of doing things, even if we ourselves participate in offness. There are other things that people call justice in play right now that are failing disastrously, we will talk about those in a minute.

Back to the question of whether me beating a pedophile with a tire iron justice? Or injustice? Clearly, that is vengeance. Whether the glock, the punch, the tire iron, or the paring knife, what we do is vengeance, not justice.

When we are plotting what we will do to balance scales, to make things right, we naturally think of violence. Without violence nothing makes sense to us, we feel deprived and helpless without violence. We are defined by our violence, and we define ourselves by our violence. We have associated words with standing down, words like punk, worthless, normal, mundane, weak, and pathetic.

In addition to our cultural hang ups, the way victims talk is infuriating. The perpetual jew-syndrome, that annoying poor me for eternity. No one ever asks the victim, “What did you do to get yourself all fucked up like that?”

If aggressive people speak, we are unheard, regardless of the provocation that led to the aggression. We are considered wrong without any investigation of facts. We are told to feel remorse, apologize, and suffer for our wrong. Odds are real good remorse and apology will be less than forthcoming. Suffering makes us stronger. The cycle goes on and on.

Transformative Justice is a real big thing that gets rid of the old completely, and does something different. Transformative Justice does not dismiss us. Sure we are problematic and quite possibly wrong for our shit, but Transformative Justice recognizes that it is not only us that is a problem.

The questions in Transformative Justice are not In the case of Val we all recall from years ago, “Does Val need a new leg?” The real questions are “Why was working the track?” and “Why was Val suicidal?” In the recent robbed-snitch situation, the question is not only “Why did the robber rob the robbed-snitch?” And “Why is the snitch a snitch?” In the situation of pro-prison pro-capitalist trickery of Lynn this year, “Does Lynn deserve an ass whipping?” or “Does her white supremacist training and desperate need for reprogramming save her from it?”

Those who pride themselves on being victims will be scared of Transformative Justice down here at these bottom levels. Those who pride themselves as being victims will continue to seek what they call justice at the systemic abuse levels. Down here at the bottom Transformative Justice evaluates entire situations, and they cannot have themselves under a light.

Transformative Justice root causes. And it analyzes what those roots feed on, and where the seed the roots extend from came from. Those who need to be right, need to be morally superior, need to protect their lies, will not accept this form of justice. Too many questions exposes deceit.

The legal definition of assault does not have to entail physical contact. According to some cultures being snitched on equates violence, as does passive-aggressive provocation. People have even defined what we are allowed to feel in response to evils inflicted upon us to support their foul systems.

Transformative Justice leaves no one out, no culture or need is off the table. It seeks to heal, not correct or condemn, but to transform harm into healing. And this pulls us into defining healthy. The infliction of wickedness on us are often considered healthy by those who benefit from our subversion.

Our social problems that lead to violence are the same on every yard varying by degree. Lying, stealing, snitching, disrespectful youngsters, domestic issues, and drugs. We are not discussing issues inflicted upon us by authority right now, only between ourselves. How do we work together? Not just the apex families, I mean everybody. Old numbers and new numbers, high and sober, christian witch Muslim native jew buddhist atheist agnostic catholic voodooist hoodooist branch-davidian mormon vampire? What do we need to do to come together? To walk together asking questions? We can understand why those given this knowledge before let it fall by the wayside.

Transformative Justice entails looking at every ingredient in a fully baked situation and pulling out whatever harmful thing went into it. To make it healthy for everyone and to make sure that ingredient is not used in that particular harmful way again.

We who are aggressive or violent often feel like we are right to be ourselves. As a result of feeling justified we have no problem owning our behaviors that others say are wrong. And we are confused by victims claiming that no one hears them. I read these books by academics who are completely full of shit that make that claim in fancy rhetoric over and over that victims are not heard. We know better.

Alleged victims are on the news, in the papers, freely speaking at Court. They do not even need evidence to put someone in jail. They just say whatever they want, a pig writes it down, somebody is going to jail. Whole lives are destroyed, futures stunted or burnt, just because an alleged victim speaks.

We are all guilty until proven innocent in this country, regardless of the crime. Victims are all that are heard in the current Injustice System. That is not the way of Transformative Justice. We will look at these and other things smart people call justice, but are not. We need to think about whether constantly seeking vengeance and retribution for wrongs makes us into imitators of the monsters (pigs) who roam around us everyday?

Before you read the next page, think about your last violent altercation. What was it about? Then ask what was it really about? Overlay the situation with the placeholders in the current American Injustice System and identify your roles in it. Judge, prosecutor, defense attorney?

How do we define things overlaid with current systems? Did you want the white boy to fuck up Denzel in training day? They are both pigs, no? At least you were disappointed when they let the white boy out of the bathtub and did not shoot him. Right? The ways we define things are important. The ways we stand by our definitions are important.

What is vengeance? What is oppression? What is retribution? Let us look at what they call Retributive Justice real quick.

Just Women Part VI

As we admire our keen desire to enact vengeance on those we deem in debt to some tenet of our imposed/imposing code of honor, we should look at Retributive Justice.

In here, our code of honor deters disrespect. It sends loud messages as to what we will and will not tolerate far and wide. We do not feel like we need to talk to those we harm because they are only victims of the natural corollary of their own choices.

After they are harmed for what they did, whatever they have to say is irrelevant. They knew that what they were doing was wrong when they did what they did. Their fate is to pay for the debt they stacked up by violating the rules we live by. After all, they are in our world now, right? Whatever culture they came from meant nothing once they came through these gates.

That logic is identical to the logic of the pig that put the cuffs on you that day that set you on the long journey to where you sit reading this right now.

Common situations.

1. Fight on the yard, one lady down, another still kicking her ass, winner goes to Detention.
2. Somebody gets robbed and snitches, robber gets tickets.
3. Pig sees someone take something from someone, taker is labeled a bully, gets tickets, goes to Detention.
4. Someone gets caught with a TV in their cell with a DOC number on it that is not their own, she gets a theft ticket.

Pigs are the bullies that use their power to harm whoever they want without any true understanding of situations. They do not care how those situations developed. They give no thought to what resolution might actually help the situation, they just seek only to punish.

The reality could be…

1. one whose ass is getting kicked tried to seduce ass kicker’s wife
2. robbed-snitch robbed 100 people
3. person taking thing had consent
4. TV was loaned to her

Sometimes things are not what they look like. So many people, including us, believe the injured had it coming a lot of times. We may even have thought at one time that we deserve(d) whatever punishment we got as far as sentencing goes. I believed I got off really good with one Life plus 10.5 years and not Death. At the time I believed I deserved Death. Eye for an eye, life for a life and all that. I still think that way sometimes. Programming fights back when you try to rip it out.

We have an intense program embedded into almost every thought, action and plan. I was shown that I had been programmed in that way. In that devastating moment of realization I knew I might not be able to wipe the program from my mind completely in this life. But I knew I would try my best. And I knew I would try to help others resist that programming.

Where did we get the idea that punishment heals, cures, or fixes anything? We know from our own experiences, and from the experiences of everyone we love, that punishment makes things worse.

We know when we beat someone down they will not be smarter when they get up. They will not be changed for the better. They may not disrespect us in that same way, but that is not a life lesson they need, that is only for our selfish benefit.

Why would we want to make people more like us while we fight to survive in a system built by white freaks who want to make us more like them? What do we need to do to let people be who they are? And to let that be OK?

When was the last time you sat in the Yard Office hand-cuffed. Sitting uncomfortably because no one has thought yet to invent the con-chair with dents in the backseats of police cars. Or in the backs of chairs, so we can sit pleasantly while cuffed up.

Anyway, the cops tell us we are bad and wrong, disruptive, crazy and some more shit. Then the punishment process begins. We get a punishment that has nothing to do with anything and makes nothing better. It is retribution, and it is imbalanced vengeance. There is nothing just or fair about it.

All the factors in situations can never be laid out for pigs, and we are careful to dilute even vague truths with them. They never could understand even with more knowledge.

We convicts have immense capacity to design creative ways of dealing with things that can help, and not harm others. We can find ways to help whole situations right here on the yard. We can make anything out of anything, we’re the most innovative people on the planet.

We are insanely creative. We have no excuse for operating under their played out damaging system of retribution and thinking it is cool. We are not lazy, we can work to do things differently. We can change our world.

There is no correction in retribution. There is no justice in Retributive Justice either. They tagged the word Justice after Retribution just to justify retaliating legitimately under law.

Sadly, we inflict their same system on each other. We are inclined towards retribution so much that stepping out of it feels unnatural. And violence is so natural to us we feel like we were born to it. We may try to stop being violent for whatever reason, for God, or for Jesus, or for a good bunkie, or for our spouse, or for cupcakes. But it hurts. For some of us literally.

We get headaches, back pain, or nausea if we let people harm those we love and then do nothing to harm them back. We obsess about what that bitch did, or said, or did not do or did not say, until we make ourselves sick. Our bodies literally can not rest until we act out violently. After cannot completely get away from it. Some might whisper that it wasn’t so, but there are more that remember that it was. People are jealous of the strangest things. The whispers of devious, envious whispering pussies cannot change what was.

There is a piece of the Dominant Ill-Logic that we have so recently learned about and know we want to resist. The piece that says a certain demographic is better than us. That they are allowed to make their living off of our lives. That we are disposable, and as such, we get what we deserve.

We live like that on the yard, to an extent. We think we are better than others, like the rats and pigs-pets right here on the yard? We have committed acts of violence and unfairness against others and believe they get what they deserve. You will rationalize it. You will defend it. Because the program is real. And fights back.

I am not writing this because I know how to deprogram. But because I know we should try. I know that we are reproducing something so ugly, so destructive, and so deeply ingrained in us that it seems right. But it is not, and it can never be right.

What is it we really want when we punish each other? When we keep others in their place? When we make sure no one steps out of their lane? Do our corrective measures with other prisoners on the yard correct anything? Do we balance scales? Or even things out? Or do we just want to get things back to the fucked off way they were before the violation of code?

Putting things back the way they were? Restoring things to how they used to be before a fracture, a rift, a trauma? Even a child can tell you things can never be the way they were. Yet the leaders of schools of thought that do not even see us as human have created a whole ridiculous concept called Restorative Justice.

Just Women Part VII

Restorative Justice looks like Transformative Justice as long as you do not look too close or expect too much. It is what we do when we begin to break away from violence.

When we choose to break away from violence we begin to struggle to behave differently. If you are truly violent, being kind to assholes can feel treacherous. It can feel like we are complicit in their evil. It feels like not correcting them makes us guilty of not protecting others. We think if we do not stop them no one will. We feel that if we do not check those bitches no one will, they will be left reckless, and it will be all our fault.

When we try to be non-violent we feel ashamed for not doing what we expect of ourselves. We feel embarrassed for not doing what those around us have come to expect. Growing pains hurt.

After a while we start to struggle to have conversations instead of fights more often than not. But unlike Transformative Justice, Restorative Justice is a temporary band aid where nothing really changes.

Practical example of Restorative Justice that you may recall…

Someone gets robbed on the yard and then snitches. Later un-involved participants set up a meeting at which it is decided the robber will repay the robbed-snitch what she had taken. This would restore the robbed-snitch to her pre-robbery financial standing. The robber explained why she had done it, expressed her sincerest apologies, and everything was good.

A few days later the robbed-snitch found out the robber was not going to get disciplinary infractions. The robbed-snitch wanted the robber to lose some of her good days and be forced to stay in prison longer. The robbed-snitch stormed up to the Yard Office and demanded that the pigs punish the robber, give her a ticket and take her good days.

The robber was told quickly (by this writer) to cease all repayment to the robbed-snitch who had violated the agreement. The agreement never could have worked as this writer told those who tried to implement it.

Restorative Justice cannot work for so many reasons. It is just an unfortunate rest area on the way to Transformative Justice. It is an idea that makes no sense as long as humans are unique. It takes nothing into account that is necessary for even discovering justice in any situation, much less clearly defining it. It is a silly speed bump. An annoying incomplete theory comprised of endless half ass equations.

Restorative Justice claims to make the victim “whole. To make things the way they were before. To compensate for losses and make everything “right again. It does not consider if whatever was considered right before was truly wrong on its face. Restorative Justice requires the criminal feel bad, and to see the loss she caused. It also demands she care about the pain and the misery caused by her actions. And Restorative Justice implies the criminal should be ashamed.

This whole concept is laughable. Not only is the criminal not going to be ashamed, there is the glaring fact that the “victim” usually is not without blame. Also there are circumstances that may have encouraged the crime. The charade of Restorative Justice requires the offender to admit guilt. Then she must express remorse. After the Court is satisfied with that, she must modify her behavior, and then pay whatever the Court says must be paid. And then she must reintegrate as a productive citizen into society. This is absurd. Somebody did not think this shit through.

Restorative Justice will always increase recidivism. It is designed to. The offender/criminal does not only not believe in the same “right and wrong” as is imposed upon them, but usually does not give a fuck either way. These Justice theories are as impractical as they are incomplete.

Criminal culture does not lend to the conceits of those who wrote that bullshit up. They will say we are sociopaths if we do not feel bad for what they say we should feel bad for. And not only that, we must feel bad in the way they say we should. They are too dense to see we carry the weight of the whole world. They do not grieve for all of humanity. They are so self righteous that their version of right and wrong are all that matters. They seek to restore the everything back to the exact situation in which the crime occurred. What do they say the definition of insanity is? Doing the same thing expecting a different result?

Restorative Justice claims to not facilitate violence but it does. Shame, bias, forced behavior modification, and pressing people down with the weight of a code from a foreign culture are all forms of violence. It is, according to my reading and understanding, better named Restorative Violence.

As we learn this stuff together we are listening to really smart people. We are learning how to hear those people, reading hard books with fancy language that talk big shit about us like we do not really exist. These sciences, studies, and theories are about us. Not them. How dare we not be involved in their stuck up conversations? We are trying to make sense of all this madness, as we should.

Restorative Justice looks like another con of the white man to explain how we have wronged a righteous people. To create new ways in which we owe them our souls, and the souls of our children. Children who, by the design of all forms of slavery, get pulled into hell. Children who suffer while they wait for us to “pay back” to society what the thieves say we owe them.

Restorative Justice is not fair, or just, by any stretch of the imagination. It is stunning people think it could be. There is no way to accurately weigh the things these people toss onto the scales on an individual basis. But, if we want to look at true unfairness, at American Injustice at one of its finest points, let us look at Distributive Justice.

Just Women Part VIII

Distributive Justice is big. It is New Jack City on a global scale. So much money and so many resources are used to harm so many people to keep just a few people rich. Distributive Justice keeps the powerful in the penthouse and it is the essence of unfair. It is truly gross. We reenact this form of injustice too, in our own way.

I could be incorrect, I could have it all wrong, it’s happened before. You know how quickly I run through things. But it appears that this Distributive Justice thing is not even wearing a mask. Distributive Justice is America giving the finger to everyone except the rich.

This is my definition of Distributive Justice – giving people what they are due based on an incomplete assessment of values derived from bullshit assumptions regarding the worth of people as determined by culturally foreign value judgment from shifting and indecisive concepts of morality. Let us bring this nonsense down to our reality, on the yard, and look at it here.

Does the robbed-snitch deserve her property back? Or does she deserve a beat down for snitching? Does the murderer deserve Life? Do drug dealers deserve Life? Does our brother deserve to go insane because trump says he does not deserve his Tshot? Answers come quickly from us. We see the world a specific way. Answers come just as quickly from them. And they define what is “right.”

They may appear to be unrelated questions. Unrelated to each other. Unrelated to distribution of funds. But they are not. Did we use my cell-made definition of Distributive Justice to answer those questions from our own perspective? Or did we answer them based on common sense? There is not one thing common about sense.

I am not asking you to ponder anything I am unwilling to ponder myself. Some say life is sacred. Is anyone capable of accurately judging the worth of a human life? Was your judge capable of judging your worth? Or the worth of the loss of you to your family and your children? Deciding who gets what and why is a huge deal, in any capacity. Yet judge instantaneously. We have been programmed to judge based on a broken system, and we do not even see it when we do it.

The textbook definition of Distributive Justice is a means of distributing resources, rewards and duties fairly to people.

Well, why is there so much discrepancy between Scottsdale and Sunnyslope? Between Lumley and Cruz? Between my cell and the pigs-pets cells? Between a kitchen worker’s wage and the staff barber’s wage? Between the sentence of a white man and a black man. I am ashamed that people defend this Distributive Justice crap.

Distributive Justice is not just an economic disease, it is a disease that spreads through everything. We are all part of it.

My Sisters, Brothers, Nieces, Nephews, friends. I do not suggest that we feel bad for anything we have done in here or out there. This is not about that. But I think we need to analyze what we do, why we do it, and make some conscious decisions based on realizing how weve been programmed.

Do we want to be a part of reenacting the same injustices we receive? Projecting the systems of pigs and courts onto others? When we look around and we decide who deserves what, we should use extreme caution. We should again lay the Injustice System over the situation and look at our role.

Imagine a situation you are in where you have to right a wrong. Are you the Defender? Or are you a Prosecutor? We get sick from not inflicting bodily harm on someone who we think deserves it. Will we ever start getting sick every time we agree that someone deserves punitive treatment on the yard?

We are better than that. We are not thoughtless, self righteous pigs and persecutors/prosecutors. We are not dense P.O.s and preoccupied judges. We should be cringing from any semblance of that foulness if we discover it in ourselves.

We do not want them inflicting their beliefs of right and wrong on us, why are we inflicting our beliefs of right and wrong on others? We can never have enough data to judge fairly, to fairly distribute anything. Just like the Courts could not. But courts do not seek justice. Courts seek money, power, control, domination. We do not want to be like that.

Just Women Part IX

OK, we have looked at the major branches of what this society calls justice.

1.Retributive – we get what we deserve.

2.Restorative – put it back the way it was so the same thing happens again.

3.Distributive – give people what their due based on racism.

4.Transformative – recognize all those forms of injustice are trash and do something completely different that transforms everything that is busted from the ground up into something healthy that does not kill us all.

There are social problems that will occur when we start down a path to discover new ways of living. We will have to pay attention to very small things, to things we do and say by rote. We will have to move those things around constantly until they align with our objective.

What is our objective? To get out? To restore yourself to the same situation, or worse, than before? To stay here for Life and let things go on as they always have?

We do not have to lay up in here and die from whichever disease they give us. We are perfectly situated to become students of the most debilitating, most destructive diseases ever to plague the earth. We are not helpless. Maybe the beast is not slain by abolitionists from outside the body of the beast? Maybe it is slain by abolitionists from within the beast? Maybe we have to study HIV? Maybe we become HIV? Why would we live in ways that help the beast thrive? We literally live in every cell of the beast. Why would we wait for others to do our work for us? How could they succeed out there without our help in here?

We can imagine a healthy environment. We can imagine equality on the yard. We can imagine not needing staff to run our days. After thinking through this, maybe we can imagine gatherings in the field where disputes are discussed and we create solutions that are unique to the needs presented in each situation. We can see by the strategic ways we live that we are not stupid. Regardless of what we have been told and have told each other.

We can imagine continuing to be outspoken in ways that inspire others to stand up for themselves. We can see it, if we really try, we can see the beginnings of wanting a world without violence down here on the yard between ourselves.

The words we use like convict, victim, offender, innocent, guilty, criminal and court can be given new meanings, or trashed even. We would have to agree to put effort into this thing, we would have to agree to meet together and ask a lot of questions in order to solve our problems when we discover them.

We would have to study ourselves and stop reproducing the distortions we have learned and lived by for so long. We have to learn to live by what we see, by what we want, we have to preserve the water of the tribe for posterity in tedious, precise ways. We can live together better than this.

We will have to work to find a way to not feel complicit in acts we have nothing to do with. We will forgive other convicts some of their honor-debts. The individualists are quick to explain to us that “forgiveness is not about them, it’s about you. We will always be appalled by their short sighted selfishness, but we let them be them.

The majority of people are selfish, they would crumble if they were made responsible for others in the ways we are everyday. Those people are not Atlas, they do not know what we carry on our shoulders and they do not understand the sense of responsibility we feel for others.

They do not comprehend that female apex predators who survive the hunt pull the food home and make sure everyone eats, and when all is well, eat last. We believe If we do not check these bitches, nobody will? That is a fact. But we do not know if they will continue to need to be checked unless we stop and see.

We are not like the men in the sense that we are capable of growth in a way they are not. We do not have to adhere to custom in here the ways they do. We have a greater capacity to resist the current than they do.

Admin promotes relationships between women as a lever, as a method of inflicting pain and a control device. You know I have been complaining about it for years. I ignorantly thought the answer was for female prisoners to stop being so fucking gay and we can take back our power. Now I see that is like telling me and the sisters to stop loving the brothers, it is just not going to happen. We do not have to change ourselves, especially our relationship preferences, to take back our power.

Changing who we are is not how we become autonomous, self reliant, safe among each other. We do not have to pretend to be, or try to become anything we are not. We are just going to try something different, something new. We do not have to be different to do different.

There is nothing we are doing we have to eliminate from our lives. Some of us are doing a lot. We are just choosing to deal with our problems in a way that better protects us from pigs and administrative influences by their pets. We can take care of each other in new ways, it will take a while. Communities have done it in harsher environments than ours.

So where would we begin? We have met and asked questions. We have circulated questions and gathered answers. We need to make decisions. We need to follow through.

What questions would we ask in situations in order to find ways of doing our time differently? Let us look at the robbed-snitch situation again. What would the robbed-snitch and the robber situation have looked like in a Transformative Justice infused community?

1. Questions would be asked.
2. Problems identified.
3. Solutions agreed upon.
4. Solutions enacted.

What questions?
Why did the robbery happen? What did the robber need and why? What other way could she have gotten it? What was the real purpose, need or lack that prompted the robber to rob? What in our ways as a community contributed to the robbery? How many times had the robbed-snitch been robbed? Why did the robbed-snitch go to the pigs? What made the robbed-snitch believe that going to the pigs was ok? What needs to change for her to stop getting robbed? What can we do to help her stop snitching? What can we do to make sure that situation of snitching need not occur ever again on our yard? What can we do to make sure that situation of robbing need not occur ever again on our yard?

We are not dumb enough to do things like a court of law. We have been through enough to understand how stupid it is to look at a victim or an upstanding citizen or a pig and think they are good people. We understand that whatever happened to them may in fact have been justice. We have to find a way to live that recognizes the brokenness of the systems designed to limit and damage.

Transformative Justice is a seemingly little thing, not drastic or demanding. It is beautiful, simple and beneficial. You can see it. If you think about it we do it on very small scales but only among our own family groups, just like the earlier examples of non violence. But can you see how we could do this between groups on the yard, not just our small circles? Can you see how we could keep the pigs out of our lives?

There will certainly still be violence, but not as much, and not in ways the pigs know about. We know we can change things, we already do it when we have to, and sometimes just because we can. We have many obstacles. Inconsistency and inefficiency and the institutional paranoia of our captors will be a thing because it always is. Staying away from them wherever and whenever possible has been, and always will be, our best option. Most of us do that anyway, imagine the decrease of drama if 50% of women did time like this? 75%? Can you imagine 100%? Can you imagine a custom of care? A habit of looking out for each other in this way? Of everyone having a voice? Of situations being examined from multiple angles? Of greater protection against harms from pigs? We are smart women, collective knowledge would be a formidable force to be reckoned with. Our knowledge far exceeds that of our captors.

We would have to have our own system for introducing new women to our ways. Right now we have no order, we have no structure. Leaving things as they are is not the answer. Autonomy inside prison seems impossible. Practicing a new form of justice inside hell surrounded by demonic pigs and their inmate spies seems impossible. Navigating pigs wearing masks with painted on smiles, speaking kind words and passing out deadly steak seems treacherous. But doing nothing is insane.

Prisons should not exist. After the last round of plantations were put down, this round rose. The south did rise again. We have to begin to do what we can to unite inside these cages. Even if that just means we deal with harms among ourselves in better ways than they deal with harms.

Pigs do not want to be bothered with us anymore than we want to be bothered by them. If we can get away from reproducing the brands of injustice that have been passed down to us, and implement meetings instead of beatings, we will be in route to doing some absolutely amazing things.

Follow through. We are in a place that is literally designed to make us selfish. To make us care about as few people as possible. If we are selfish the pigs win. If we are mentally sluggish and apathetic, pigs win. We have to fight back against those inclinations.

Those of you who I am writing to struggle with even imagining non violence. Those who I am writing to will protect those you love with everything in you and everything you have. Some of you have killed for those you love and would not hesitate to do it again. How have they pushed us into a corner where we do not fight back anymore? Where we just give up and do our time?

We were caught by the slavers. We were caught. We are in chains. They make their money off of us and our friends and family. We throw in the towel and just let them? “Fuck the police” has changed to “Some of them are OK.” How the fuck are some of them OK?

We are in this thing together. Living like islands gives the enemy their power. We are better than this. Life is not over because we live in a cage. If you dont like PRISM and require rules, agreements, structure, whatever, then start your own group. Or stay just you. But we should work together. We have to avoid the pigs-pets as a safety measure, but convicts must start working together, sharing knowledge, helping each other.

We can be so much better, so much more influential in the operations of our Units. We can be stronger, organized, strategic. We can be wiser together than we are alone. We can change prison culture for as long as this plantation stands. I hear it all the time, “There are more of us than them.” I am certain the people saying it are not thinking in terms of justice for whatever reason. We have changed policies in years past. We have initiated small changes on the yard like the courtesy of telling others the dogs are here. We limit our scope of influence by not coming together.

The potential in that equation is solid with you being OK as you are, as long as you are true. If you want (need) to be violent, be violent. If you want to be fat, be fat. If you want to be fit, be fit. If you want to be kind, be kind. If you do not want to be kind, do not be kind.

If someone is telling you that you need to be something you are not, odds are good that that person is pretending to be something they are not. Som
etimes that is what has to be done. But when the Humanization tactic harms us, wherever it comes from, we need to question it. Is it Dr Scott with no informed consent? Is it an undercover racist religious volunteer? Is it someone experimenting on us? Is it someone doing research on us? It could be anyone. There are a million motives people could have for suggesting we change. Some good motives, some bad. But we need to be conscious of the situation, and of our own intentions.

We grow, we mature, we gain wisdom and change according to our own experiences. We are not obligated to force ourselves into someone else’s mold. And we would be foolish to modify our behavior based judgment of another person without careful evaluation of our own.

Maybe being totally raw is not always good? But none of us are totally raw anymore, (except Dopey, Blossom, and Happie). Most of us, for very different reasons, have decided to slow down. But the totally raw still lies beneath, regardless of who forgets it is there.

We can harness that. We can move the world with it. The new 3 numbers do not know who some of us are. But moving on does not entail pretending like the past ceases to exist. Moving on doesn’t erase history or replace it with whispered untruths. These plantations could be very different. “Let them” is not our mission statement.

Some people will always find you not good enough, not calm enough, not kind enough. Fuck em. You be you. Change (if you want to) to suit you and your own agendas, spiritual influences, and goals. Not theirs.

Some people will always be uncomfortable around honesty, around any semblance of real. Fuck em. You be you.

Some people will always be jealous of you if you keep any level of raw, they will try to diminish and slander your work, success, accomplishments. Fuck em. Do what you do.

Those who love the pigs will always find you a threat, and will always slither behind your back in the pig-pins to harm you. And there are always more of them than you see. Fuck em. Be you.

They are not honest , we are. They are not sincere, we are. They are not ethical according to our culture, we are. We are beautiful, strong, smart, and wise women. Even if we are too rough for the elite, too true for the elite, we are not less than them. Let us come together, and follow through. Let us seek true justice in our world. Amongst ourselves, let us become just women.

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SPEAK NOW – by Shajiyah X. Iman

My oldest daughter, Anisa, came through prison and saw what had transpired since she was here last. She saw that we were in struggle, formally. We had always been in struggle, but now we understood what that meant. And we understood that our struggle was global, our struggle is a human struggle, and we are not alone.
Anisa attended some get-togethers and read some articles and cried. Like we all do when our eyes are truly opened. And she vowed to go into the world and join the cause, to do everything she could to help. And she has done that, which sets her apart from so many.
We are stumbling in this thing, we are running head-on into the Abolition Movement because it is right, and because we convicts/ exconvicts have a right and an obligation to join. And we will be criticized for not being all kinds of “enough” to be a part of something so beautiful, but here
we are.

I hold on to something a hater among the inmate population who worked very hard to prevent me from gaining knowledge towards joining this end said to me. She said that I was not intellectual enough to even be there. I didn’t have a problem being not intellectual enough because I like me as I am, but I had a problem not gaining the knowledge. So I got it, with so many trying to get me thrown out and coerce me to leave by delivering the most pathetic of underhanded slights. Slights they thought I was too stupid to even see. Some still think that. But I got it what was intended for me. And you need to get it too.

We cannot wait until we are smart enough to speak or write correctly. We cannot wait until we qualify as an intellectual. We cannot wait until we are formally invited. We have to show up and do what we can now.

If we wait until we are as smart as, and as popular as ex-convict Professor Angela Davis to write or speak, we will never write or speak. If we wait until we are as kind, generous, patient and wise as Alan Gomez to show up, we will never show up. We can’t be what and who we are not, and we are better than good enough just as we are.

Anisa didn’t leave here and take classes on organizing, distributing prison art or writings, solidarity, or web page design. She just did it. All by herself, she forged a small branch off a much larger branch in the tree of this massive effort. She did it out of love, necessity, honor, respect and a basic sense of obligation to the betterment of the world.

Our voices from inside are not the voices of the elite, or the upstanding, or the educated. Anisa is not an editor, and I am not a professional interviewer and obviously I don’t intend to edit. You will get what we have raw and uncut. And you will love it. Because how could you not? Real in a world of frauds and climbers must be refreshing, and must be welcomed. And since we are not intellectuals you don’t have to worry about struggling to understand what we have to say.

I think we all need to do what Anisa has done. We all need to be about it, not just talk about it. If you leave prison, as a visitor or as an ex-convict and you promised this or that, do it. I cannot tell you how many people say, with the best of intentions (maybe), that they will never leave us. And are never to be heard from again.

Our voices are trapped in here. Professor Lance Graham from ASU is getting some convict voices out. But when you take the knowledge you’ve been given and go smooth off the rails, as I have and will continue to do inshaaAllah, another avenue must be forged. Forge new ways for your people. There cannot be too many voices reaching the world from inside these cages.
When we get together the ideas presented are stunning and often from the most surprising places. If you are not in the service of the enemy, please contribute in whatever way you can. You don’t have to be whatever anyone else says you have to be. Anisa and I are wild, we are unrestrained, we are loud and beyond bold. We are determined and dedicated. We don’t take crap and we don’t pacify traitors. As a result, a few people hate us. And we are better people for it.

Don’t be discouraged by the people who don’t like your passion or those who refuse to be active. That could change. Give them a way to speak even if they refuse to leave their houses, cells, cages, rooms. Go to them. Our pinta Teacher tells us, “No one was born with their fist raised.” Don’t wait for others.

Regardless of how people feel about you, don’t wait. Marry the Movement, multiple spouses are permitted. Marry it whether you are unfree or free. Don’t let the haters who tell you that you are not enough stop you. Let their foulness push you to be everything they are not. Don’t let those who are jealous of you or fear you steal your voice. And don’t wait. Don’t procrastinate. Speak now.

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WHEN PRISONS END, WHERE WILL KILLERS AND RAPISTS GO?
By Shajiyah Iman

To the White House, obviously
.
When I was harmed by perverts as a child they were all upstanding citizens. A pastor, several cops, and normal family men working normal jobs. They were not convicts, not ex-convicts, just regular American men living standard American lives. Rapists don’t normally go to prison in a patriarchal society. The percentage of sex offenders in prison is less than 5% of the active sex offenders in America. Sometimes they come to prison, sometimes they are presidents.

You pretend that letting armed robbers and kidnappers out onto the streets is unimaginable. But ICE, DEA, ATF, FBI and all versions of standard pigs kidnap, rob, kill and disappear thousands of people daily. You can’t possibly believe the majority of rapists and killers are in prison or ever could be? The Criminal Injustice system was not designed to house true criminals, only black, brown or poor people without license to do things others get rewarded for.

Some of you support the United States manufacturing weapons to murder tens of thousands of innocent civilians. But are scared of people who killed one, or two…or allegedly a few people? You say to kill means to take a life, and society is better without killers? Then society would be safer without cops and every killer behind bars let loose.

I don’t know anyone who hasn’t committed a crime. Not one single person. Since laws are constantly changing it is impossible to even know when you are guilty of something. And then there are made up crimes, and I don’t only mean people lying to harm people. There is a woman doing time for the crime of Internal Possession of Narcotics because her urine was dirty. This is not a thing. Yet she is here.

This will end. The Prison Industrial Complex will fall. And these houses of Corrections will be looked upon as the horrific torture institutions they really are. Then society will be immensely safer.

Kyla Susalla tells us of SROs, School Resource Officers. These are city pigs in uniforms posted up at kids schools. Her research shows these pigs increase crime at schools and criminalize children to get them on the school-to-prison pipeline. These SROs are allowed to give children Felonies for being loud or disruptive, causing the kids to be ostracized from their friends. In “The New Jim Crow” we learn of several ways the government acts against the American people by infusing neighborhoods with narcotics targeting communities to incarcerate more people. So they can build more prisons and make more money. Crime will decrease dramatically when this prison slavery system is over.

Dylan Rodriguez tells us of a professor who came into a prison and realized the prisoners were “…smiling and shockingly normal-looking people…except everyone is wearing the same thing.” This Professor walked passed bone fide rapists in uniform, perverts of all calibers with badges, sadists who carry keys, murderers through neglect and indifference, and prison administrators who dismiss the most atrocious abuses. And she was scared of the prisoners?

I was at a bus stop outside the Maricopa County Jail one day long ago with a man who was ranting about the treatment he had received in there. He was a Doctor and he was going to let everyone know what really goes on and just how cruel and stupid cops are. I laughed and told him it is way worse than that. He was shocked and asked, “You were in there? You don’t look like you would ever be in jail!”

I have learned that some inmates before prison didn’t understand the wickedness of the Criminal Injustice system. They were horrified that they had supported this sickness once they fell victim to it. But how can people believe what they can’t see? They can see if the observe the effects of the system.

Recidivism increases. The politicians claim they will reduce it, but they don’t. There are countries with much less recidivism. Recidivism is their business here. They want inmates to be released with nothing, with the world against them, with every imaginable disadvantage, so they return, because they need these beds filled. If ex-convicts don’t come back they will target the poor communities, or certain races, creating or exaggerating whatever they decide to call crime until they fill the beds with bodies to make their revenue from.

Society suffers so much for these cages. Millions of people ripped away from their families and friends. Our families all suffer intensely. Our childrens’ lives are destroyed. There are over 2 million people cages in America. It is impossible to calculate how many people are negatively affected. Millions upon millions of tortured Americans by the Criminal Injustice System.

Dylan Rodriguez gives us the UN definition of torture, “…any act by which pain and suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspects of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or st the instigation of or with consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”
American prisons are all crimes against humanity. They are designed to torture. And for us to be here is criminal, whether we are guilty of whatever we are accused of or not.

So, where will the killers go if released? Not to your house. We’d live our lives. If we wanted to kill again we could do it any day of the week and twice on the Sabbath. It is foolish to imagine we are somehow less controlled, less than human, less than reasonable, or in any way less than you. We are all just people, whether we did what they say we did, or not.

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WHAT IS A POLITICAL PRISONER – by Shajiyah

Here is Black Panther Marshall Eddie Conways definition, …a prison activist, a person that stands up to injustices, a person who for whatever reason takes the position that this or that is wrong, whether they do it based on ideology or they do it based on what they think is morally right… He goes on to say that …people become political prisoners, become conscious and become aware and act and behave based on awareness after they have been incarcerated…
Women are less political than men in prison for now. Women are molded by society to need and depend on men. If there were no men working on the plantations that cage women, we would be just as political as men prisoners.
When I say political I dont mean racially. Pigs manipulated mens prisons to control populations by segregating by race. I mean a strictly bipartisan politics with a clear divide between us and them, cons and pigs, with the cons who serve pigs categorized as pigs-pets, kind of half and half. The true us verses them.

Political prisoners are those who either never submitted to the injustices of the cage, or those who, as Mr Conway says, became conscious and aware inside, and stopped submitting to injustices. Political prisoners understand that our sentences entail being caged in these reformed plantations, being removed from greater society, and being a second class citizen for life. They understand that all this extra shit inflicted upon us inside is not what we are sentenced to.

Pigs require us to show them respect. Sometimes we do when they are around to avoid drama. Showing respect and having respect are two very different things. Slavers cannot sincerely be respected, whether they know they are slavers or not.

Political prisoners understand their rights. They understand the slave rapers who wrote the Constitution didn’t write it to help us. I am told by one of my Teachers not to fight with the Masters weapons. But when herds of pigs are trying to kill us, I will fight with whatever is within my reach.

Political prisoners know that the pigs in their institutions have crossed all lines. They have exceeded the bounds of the law, but they are not above it. We dont want the pigs to go to jail, but we want them to understand that they are not all powerful, and that we are aware where they have overstepped.
Political prisoners know that we are allowed to study their tactics. We are allowed to read whatever legal books we want. We are allowed to do our time without extra torment, harassment, devastation, and the immense grief they place upon us in here. Political prisoners dont all fight for others, some are simply struggling to survive themselves.

Political prisoners see the subversion tactics used by the pigs and try to counter them. We watch how they try to make us feel inferior, less capable, less intelligent and dependent upon them. We try to encourage others to resist that brainwashing.

We, convicts, we are beautiful. We have a collective potential that is beyond what we can comprehend. I am not referring to anything wild like overtaking the prison. The wouldnt be too difficult, and would be a lot of fun, until they killed us all, which is whatever. But I am talking about something way bigger than that. We are capable of refashioning the way we live in a manner that would benefit generations after this new slavery is over.

Back to Conways definition, …people become aware… Some of us become political prisoners inside. Some were political prisoners from before arrest. I argue that every one of us who was actually behaving in any antisocial manner before arrest are political prisoners. In 2008 I chased that man with the hatchet because he was a cop. I killed Mr Nealy because he was an ex-con turned informant, I taped upon and robbed Mr VanTress because he was an ex firefighter sex offender. Are these political acts? I am inclined to think anything is political if the intent is to defy systemic abuse. Maybe some think they dont count because they were unconnected to a recognized Movement, wild, furious, unorganized and psychotic?

Either way, becoming politicized in prison is becoming focused, it is becoming awakened to the depth of and deliberate nature of the hate crime of incarceration and tapping into the strategic methods of resisting abuse.

In my early stages of political life in prison my focus is on responding to abuses of power in a way that will result in legal action that will force the prison to change its policies. I am fine with these legal endeavors because they often work, and I win even if they dont. I win because I didnt just lay down and take it. I win because all they care about is money and fighting me back in court costs them tens of thousands of dollars even if I lose. I win because I encourage other women to fight back. I win because I am Muslim and fighting oppression is asked of me in Islam. To fight is to win.

Pigs respond differently to political prisoners. Most hate us and threaten us in interesting ways. They remind us that we are in constant jeopardy of retaliatory acts. What is interesting is that there are a few pigs who encourage resistance and detest the injustices inflicted upon us. I am under the impression, after watching everything that went into the elaborate cover up of the last gang rape of an inmate, that they are all complicit, and there is no such thing as a good cop. I knew that before prison, but I had been lulled by deceit and had been made to forget.

Political prisoners understand that every point of resistance matters. We understand we have a responsibility to spread the knowledge weve been given and to resist coercion. Once awakened we are obligated to do everything we can to fight against this slavery. And it is our privilege to do so.

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WHAT IS ABOLITION? – by Shajiyah Iman

This land w a s stolen from a n innocent people by some of the most horrific tactics imaginable.
Americans are now living comfortably on a land raped and destroyed after its inhabitants
were raped and slaughtered. The people who remained alive after the atrocities that this
country is founded on were relegated to parcels of land to keep them away from the thieves.
Hardcore killers, sadists, psychopaths, and rapists run for office. And you vote them in. You,
the people, have always voted them in.
Those leaders voted in by you, the people, purchased slaves and raped those slaves to breed
more slaves to build this country on this stolen land. This country still sustains itself on captive
souls. There were always abolitionists, people who wanted the evil system of slavery to end.
Abolition isnt comprised of just one thing. There were abolitionist arguments against slavery
from the time it began . Slavery is obviously wrong , but those who want to profit off of
humans use the Bible to justify their systemic hate crimes. They cage people in the name of
God. They strive to make their captives docile, cheek-turning creatures who refuse to resist
slavery and cannot rebel against their captors . Destruction of the will and spirit of slaves is
policy, done in the name of Jesus.
Today there are thousands of Christian organizations allowed into prisons, bibles are
everywhere. There are countless Christian services and programs . All the chaplains in most
prisons are Christian. Christianity is the fentynol of the prisons. Abundant, cheap, mind
dulling and addictive. It has always served a valuable purpose for slavers. Other faiths are
highly marginalized in prison, especially Islam. Islam teaches it is right to resist oppression in
the ways we can, even if we will lose.
Dylan Rodriguez tells us a little about the tactics of the Christianizing prison regimes, “Funded
by the politically powerful right-wing fundamentalist Prison Fellowship Ministries, similar
initiatives have spread throughout the country.” In my prison, Christian Fellowship has leased
a whole pod in which large groups of inmates live together there reducing distraction from
brainwashing techniques. Abolition doesn’t mean the destruction of Christianity, but we need
to recognize the weapons used against us in these cages.
Orisanmi Burton tells us the words of Masia Mugmuk, who explains that the prisons use is
substances, (which I use to refer to the intoxicating effects of Christianizing), as having a
specific purpose. Magmuk says, “its primary objective is to engender “marked change” of
political prisoners patterns of behavior and attitude to systematically undermine the
fundamental fibers of their third world outlook into which their behavior and attitude patterns
were reflected…” to transform us convicts into “docile creatures, robot slaves, or neoslaves.”
Howard Zinn shows us America’s first system of slavery “was psychological and physical at the
same time. The slaves were taught discipline, were impressed again and again with the idea
of their own inferiority…” I will show you in my writings and interviews over time how this
aspect of slavery has not changed a t all.
Today, Hariet Washington, i n teaching us about treacherous medical practices in prisons, says
regulations are built on the premise that prisoners are vulnerable, stigmatized, expendable,
poor, uneducated, powerless minority groups without important civil rights, feared and hated,
barred from any useful role in society, few with supportive families…”who won’t be missed
should anything happen to them.”‘
Howard Zinn tells us the slaver’s goal is to merge the slaves’ interests with the masters. That
the masters destroyed the slaves individual needs, broke up the slaves families, used
Christianity to lull them, created disunity by privileging house slaves over field slaves, and the
power of law and the ever present ability to punish. Like now.
The first abolition is thought by some to have ended slavery. It didnt. It reformed it . We
should be very careful in deciphering abolition from reform, or the south will always rise
again.
I dont say these things to discredit the lives spent, and lost, in the struggle against slavery. I
say them to express the importance of not pretending like the war is over.
Angela Davis assures us that The abolitionist movement has learned tha t without the actual
participation of prisoners, there can be no campaign.” Our opinions, as prisoners, are often
hushed as too harsh, our reactions quelled as too passionate. When that happens we will
leave the area of those free people, or the area of arrogant cop-serving prisoners who deem
their voice superior to ours . Angela Davis says, “It may not always be easy to guarantee the
participation of prisoners, but without their participation and without acknowledging them as
equals, we are bound to fail.” Let this be the scope through which we convicts recognize the
schemes of the outsider who comes in like a spectator at a zoo.
Abolition is the accumulation of acts that end a system . Abolition is continuous action
gathering momentum which will crush all the ways people are enslaved. Prison Abolition will
end this particular system of slavery currently called incarceration. Abolition is erosion against
profiting off of caged humans. It is resistance against a grotesque evil that is propagandized as a necessity for societys safety. One day everyone who supports this system of slavery will
be looked upon as being as disgusting as America’s original slavers, and as evil as the Nazis
and the Zionist Jews.
Bill Ayers tells us, “The” prison nation” is an intolerable abomination. Once you see it, you
can’t unsee it, and joining the insurgency becomes an urgent necessity.” If you are an
anticapitalist thinking person, then you are an abolitionist, whether you know it yet or not.

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PROFOUND DISRESPECT -BY SHAJIYAH

We need to be able identify people who use kindness as a torture devise. You want to believe people who declare their desire for you to succeed, to be free, safe and happy. But kindness is being weaponized by Corrections Officials in an attempt to more gracefully make more billions of dollars annually off of enslaved souls, and you must be knowledgeable of their tactics.

What kind of monster would use kind words to subvert you? To destroy your life and your family? To make their money by stomping your future into the ground? Monsters in suits make the plans.

Monsters in uniform carry out those plans and don’t care about right or wrong. As long as the beast they serve can convince the public that the monsters are not in suits and uniforms, but in the cages, they will continue to profit off of countless souls.

High level prison Administrators have heeded cries for prison reform, and the prison industry has initiated a plan for extensive plastic surgery aiming for intense pacification of reformers. They seek to pretend to have reformed an inherently deformed system. They will convince you they achieved an real institutional makeover. The swiftness of the effectiveness of the facade is horrifying to watch on the inside. These beginnings of plastic surgery makes the beast incomprehensibly more dangerous to you, to me, to society as a whole.

Deep. We often take the word profound to simply mean deep. But profound is more than just depth. Something profound has depth for a specific reason. Profundity is educated, a full depth, a reasoned depth, and a deliberate depth. It is heavy from the weight of its substance and it is on a specific trajectory.

The profound disrespect of the American Corrections Association’s improved Programification and Humanization agenda is the stuff horror movies are made of. This disrespect is not accidental, nor flippant. It is not a whimsical slip or a mistake. This disrespect was designed, mapped out with charts and graphs. It was studied through research on us inside by people claiming they were here to help us, and you by extension. This disrespect is so calculated, so far reaching and so detrimental it demands our attention.

The intended targets for programming are not only us already trapped inside, but you and your family. Anyone unable to fight the criminal injustice system can be corralled, and caged (for a very long time) to support this new form of slavery. Regardless of how above the law you think you are, no matter how law abiding you think you are, this system targets you too. There are many people as innocent as you dying in these cages.

The American Corrections Association designs clever methods to keep people coming to prison. They must make absolute certain the majority of people they release from cages return to them. They draw up intricate schemes, complex blueprints, and detailed maps on how to keep prisons filled, and how to increase crime in your neighborhood so they can build more prisons. Caged humans are their business. They must increase their profits.

The tactic of Humanization is weaponized kindness. There are classes here in prison teaching those who hate us (staff) how to pretend like they don’t hate us in our presence. They have to go to special training classes to learn how to speak to us in a way that appears kind. They are trained to pretend like they believe we are people, not animals. They want us to think we can like them, trust them, even respect them. Humanization makes prisoners feel like humans, and also makes us see our captors as humans. They want to make us look at them as non threatening, as well intentioned people. They want us to forget that they clock in and clock out everyday, indifferently profiting from generational destruction of an entire class of society.

They speak to us cordially while watching convicts die from inadequate healthcare. They ask us about our mental health as the bodies of our friends are laying on the concrete. They want us to think they aren’t so bad. That prison isn’t so bad.

They need us to believe that they are people too. To make us see them as something other than slaveholders, slave masters with disciplinary whips. They are being taught to package lies in a civilized wrapping. They need us to forget all of our friends they’ve raped, driven insane, tortured and/or killed.

Their weaponized kindness is designed to cause us to forget how they used to pepper spray us and leave us burning for hours. How they steal our mail to cut our ties to the free world and sever all our emotional support. They want us to ignore the fact that their reentry programs enhance a sense of isolation and direct all of attention to our weaknesses while drastically diminishing our strengths. They want us to stop suing them, fighting them, and resisting the cage.

Supporters for prison reform claim that cops being kind is a start because it makes people in cages feel better. They think with a little kindness people will live longer in the cages and make the State more money. As if a cage designed for a human to live and die in could ever, even after being reformed, be humane?

Like prison reformers some inmates side with the capitalists, and support caging humans. These inmates, like reformers, support cages for some who are not as good as them, and they deem themselves superior to most other prisoners. The prisoner who thinks she is better than all other prisoners, and the reformers who think they are better than prisoners, all enjoy sleeping with the enemy and are the enemy at heart.

We must pay attention. We must not allow them to blur the line between us and them. They are not our friends. Before understanding what was really going on there were cops I liked and respected. Not a lot of them, but some. There are still some I won’t sue as a result of their self torment and internal struggle against their occupation. Not surprisingly that is a small list, because those rarely stay. I see how they survive off our souls, so do they. And those I won’t sue are smart enough to understand the foulness of their occupation. People who seek to profit off of our pained, controlled, crushed existence do not deserve respect.

I was spoken to kindly the other day by a high level administrator. In this sixteenth year down I am very grateful for the abundance of reminders in the moment when I am being manipulated. I am glad that I always feel under duress in the presence of cops, that I know instinctively they cannot be trusted. I know they don’t want to be near me almost as much as I don’t want to be near them. But even still, I need to be careful not to be swayed by their fake kindness. Sitting there watching the high level administrators facial expressions, listening to his respectful words and his non threatening tone I knew he was good at his job. We have to pay attention. This humanization tactic in their war strategy to destroy millions more lives is absolutely fucking brilliant.

This devious manipulation strategy will even coerce more people to become cops. It is very difficult for DOC to get people to work as cops in these cages where there is a creepy nepotism at work. Staff seem to be having kids and raising them just to work here. Whole families work in here, 3 or more generations.

Since so few outsiders want to work as slave masters, prisons are hiring younger and/or less educated people. Completely undisciplined staff with no job experience and no work ethic are walking the yards daily. Applicants may think being a slave master is more honorable than working drive-thru at Burger King. They are so wrong. And the youngsters coming in to work are in grave danger.

Blurring the lines between us and them with strategic fakeness will have many side effects. An obvious one will be the increase in cops raping inmates. Their is no consent in captivity, slavery, hostagehood, or whatever you want to call this civil death. Cops often talk like the rapists are the victims of the slave’s wanton advances. Keeping up with the ‘us verses them’ in here is a safety measure. For our safety, not theirs.

The Humanization tactic will have a multitude of consequences the American Corrections Association factored for but doesn’t care about. Both staff and convicts are expendable to the designers of these ploys at the top of these billion dollar corporations. They calculated for each inevitability. They expect losses and significant collateral damage on both sides. They don’t care who lives or dies. But their revenue will skyrocket, and that’s all that matters.

We need to keep the lines between us and them clear. We need to be mindful of the tactics they’ve initiated to destroy us, and you. We must teach our new numbers coming in that now more than ever cops are not our friends.

We do not need cops. They are a detriment to all of society. The existence of these cages make society dramatically more unsafe. We are their money and nothing else from their twisted perspective. We are their livelihood. Maybe the standard turnkey doesn’t understand the economics of slavery, the currency of captivity, the revenue of incarceration, but he still supports it. Like the SS guard of old, he’s just doing his job. He doesn’t understand the system is designed for the babies of slaves to be thrown into the injustice system guaranteeing they get cycled through the ovens of incarceration. They are here for a paycheck and typically aren’t smart enough to ponder moral and ethical dilemmas even if they wanted to.

This new tactic of pretending to think of us as human, and them presenting as kind people, is a peculiar type of cruelty. We should not underestimate its potential for destruction. They are predators preying on our dreams of being valued just as human beings. We are vulnerable, we *want them to be kind to us, we *want to be talked to like we matter, we *want to not feel targeted and hunted. They will capitalize on our desire to be cared about. This tactic will one day be proven to be the most horrific calculated grooming process in world history.

We must proceed with caution until the walls come down. We need to help each other constantly remember what the criminal injustice system really is. If we forget, we won’t resist, and they are banking on their kindness making us forget. Kindness has always been the white capitalist’s war strategy. They always pretend to be the friends of those they intend to annihilate.

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LIFE MINDED
by Shajiyah Iman
(to u-l 8/25/25)

Lifers are almost always more capable in every way than we are given credit for. We have the heavy responsibility of educating ourselves in order to help other convicts. People almost always say, “I’m sorry,” upon hearing that we have Life sentences. I ignorantly used to say, “It’s OK, I earned it,” until I was made to understand by the words of my politicized that was a lie. I had been ignorant of why the Prison Industrial Complex exists and from what it had arisen. And like so many, I didnt understand the distribution of accountability for systems of abuse.

The Injustice System in this country is brutal. When we use the term Criminal Justice System, we should understand that it is the justice system itself that is criminal, not the victims it was designed to destroy, most of whom have been trapped inside of it since childhood. The current systems we struggle against are sustained by capitalists at every level of society. Most of them believe they are just trying to keep up, or get ahead, but the small decisions we make everyday matter in ways we dont think about. Normal everyday people are upholding the most evil of systems by avoiding thinking about them, and by selfishly choosing to look away.

Once we get a grasp on the reality of the insidious nature of the US Injustice System we feel overwhelmed. We feel like our everyday decisions cant make any real difference against a way of doing things ingrained in our ways of life and our inherited faulty reasoning. Its easy to get distracted when the task at hand is so immense. We start looking for distractions sometimes when we feel like we can’t handle the objective. It isn’t just laziness and selfishness that keep people from doing the right thing, its a lack of community esteem, we don’t really believe we can make a difference, alone or together. When we get a glimpse of the magnitude of the beast we are up against, we just feel helpless.

When we understand the depth of the ignorance that sustains the system we feel completely inadequate to the task of doing anything about it. But I think we can do something, and I believe the things we can do matter. If our ignorance was part of the problem and someone helped give us light to give to others, the spreading of that light can cure the disease of ignorance.

People are programmed in here to focus on themselves, superficial conflicts, and whatever staff tell them to focus on. People are trained to believe prisons are necessary. People are taught that without them society would be overrun by criminals. How is propaganda so good that people can’t see society is both overrun, and ran, by extreme criminals? How are criminals who wear suits, who buy their way out of prison, who commit astounding atrocities on a daily basis, not considered the most vile menaces to society? There are presidents who respect no laws, leaders who stack up corpses on beaches, men who frequent islands owned by Jews who pimp out little girls, but people are convinced my neighbor who stole a $50.00 nail gun deserved 12.5 years in prison? At some point people will see. At some point people will care. At some point people will see and some will care and the slave industry will be stopped, again. Some Lifers see what others refuse to see.

Some of us Lifers understand that we have a duty to the world, a duty to tell people what we see from a perspective that inshaaAllah they will never have to know first hand. We have a duty to give that perspective in real time, not hoard it for later. We have an obligation to resist slavery, even though we will not see the end of it before they carry us from whichever plantation we are assigned to in a bag.

There are some Lifers who live under the pigs. Some Lifers believe that they need the pigs to get by, to survive, to gain perks, to get away with whatever. Usually these are the Lifers who believe they are worthless, regardless of how superior or how gangster they try to present themselves. They feel that the pigs offer them something worthwhile only because they have forgotten what worthwhile means. They have forgotten, if the ever knew, that the slave is needed by the slaveholder, but slave needs nothing the slaveholder has. They are weak without their source of labor and profit, we are strong with or without them. Those of us who have been made to remember owe our brothers and sisters the courtesy of reminders. We all have an obligation to do whatever we can, even if what we have to offer feels insignificant.

Lifers are excluded from many things in prison because we lack what staff call “Priority Ranking.” Priority Ranking is defined in the Glossary of Terms for ADCRR Policy Provides “a rank listing inmates by program, utilizing the inmates individual risks and needs, as well as time to serve, prioritized against all inmates for staff to utilize to determine placement into appropriate programming”. A Program is “a structured plan or system through which the Department works to meet its goal to modify or correct criminal behavior”. Some of us make it a point to not be welcomed in spaces of Programming. But others want to be in those spaces and are not allowed due to their sentence.

We Lifers are told that we are a waste of space. Since the new Director has allowed Lifers to attend college level lectures, staff have stretched their waste of space doctrine to include the better jobs. By better jobs I don’t mean Arizona Corrections Industry (ACI) jobs that serve only to exploit prisoner labor, I mean regular jobs that keep the prison running because there is no way staff can do it without us. There needs to be serious conversations about that fact. The Priority Ranking a/k/s Waste of Space Department Order is designed to make sure those who have a chance to get out are sufficiently programmed to come back and to make Lifers understand that we are unworthy of the simplest things.

They want Lifers to believe we are a waste of space, incapable and inadequate, worthless and expendable. The need to make us feel as if we are nothing, or less than nothing, as a safety precaution. If we feel empowered or valuable we become a problem. If we feel capable of being heard in a way that exposes the evils of the system, we become a threat. If we tell the outside world what prison is like they feel uneasy. They are pretty sure no one will believe us anyway, but still they are uneasy. If we tell the outside world what they really are, what they really do, and my God…the things they have done, they get angry. If they can successfully make us feel worthless, we won’t speak out. And when we do speak out we know they will try to stop us.

But we Lifers are capable, and we are adaptable. There are many accomplished convicts living in these cages. Some have done things even free people can not do. We have been pushed to our limits over and over, and still we stand. We live our lives inside the gleaming razor wire differently from non-Lifers. We are serious, and intense in everything we do. We don’t agree on all things, and sometimes find ourselves at odds with each other, but even the ways we disagree are different from short timers.

Being excluded from so many things stimulates our creativity. The programs offered are often times subversive. Most of them, as I said, are designed to keep people coming back. I just got thrown out of a Program two weeks ago for pointing out to the class how the text art had subliminal images that promoted isolation and marginalization. The prison has filed everything as a program though, even religious services and educational opportunities. We find ways to increase our knowledge in unorthodox ways. We are always aware that whatever we have to study is subject to being taken from us at any moment. Nothing is ever safe from being stolen by staff. We know prison is designed to destroy us, to kill us, we know our time is limited and we act accordingly. I have seen people acting under color of state authority murder people in ways that would get a non-pig hundreds of years in prison. They go under paid investigation and come right back to the yard.

The staff of Perryville are particularly averse to higher education even though they pretend not to be. Some time ago they had taken to occupying the room specifically designed for higher education during the hours of college classes and lectures. They were doing it as an intentional attack to force us to cancel classes or to find other places to meet. Staff find us so beneath them, so unworthy of anything good, that they believe it is their duty to hinder our education. One was mocking me just a few days ago for always reading books. He drew out the words and said it in a nasally manner that was so immature all I could do was laugh.

They refuse to allow prisoners to be educated without as much harassment as they can inflict. Sometimes when dealing with a particularly litigious Lifer staff will use their pets, bitches, junior badges, rats etc. to attempt to deter legal actions. These pets sometimes pretend to be on the side of the convicts but aren’t These pets some imagine themselves scary and intimidating. They’re not.

Lifers who are writers have books banned as being dangerous to the orderly operations of the institution. Mumia Abu-Jamal is a banned author. I found him when I was near giving up. His words will never leave my mind even though his book was taken from me long ago. I feel like I was in his presence, like he was talking to me, telling me it’s necessary to continue to fight against this coffin that encapsulates my living body. He was the first person to show me others who have resisted this slavery before. Anything that makes us feel less alone, or less worthless, is seen as a security threat.

Lifers understand our duty to comfort and encourage each other, and to help non Lifers stop coming back. When my first book was banned I couldn’t believe it. I stared at the paperwork that told me my work was a threat to the institution like it was a lifetime achievement award. The staff finding my books a threat made me feel like I had done something very right. My intention writing that book was to help my sister and connect Muslims inside with Muslims outside. The book didnt even attack the prison except to mention daily activities. It felt good to be on a list with men and women who said what needs to be said in ways no one wants us to speak. It was a wonderful moment to see that I had stabbed the beast, even if just a little bit. I decided it was far to soon to fight the ban because I’ve not yet written the book they should ban.

We Lifers generate ideas towards solutions for big and small problems inside our cages. We seek to assist those who will one day stand where we stand if the walls of these plantations remain a little longer. Lifers who become educated are an threat because we will educate others for the rest of our lives. Some of us have an urgency to share truth when we are given it. We understand knowledge is precious and that hoarding it is a crime. We know the right piece of information could sabe a life or help keep someone free. When we teach youngsters what we’ve been taught, staff’s livelihood is threatened, because they live off of recidivism.

When staff look into the eyes of an intelligent Lifer it makes them nervous, and makes them question their theory that we are just untamed animals that must be caged, and deserve to be caged. They see that we understand what it feels like to be buried alive. They see that we understand that they hold the shovels.

Sometimes prison staff try to talk to me to make me understand that I shouldn’t hate them just because they are cops. They tell me that they are individuals, and that some of them mean no harm. I believed that at one time, but doing time murders illusions. I tell them they are slaveholders and facilitate harm regardless of their intentions. I understand that they can’t hear me, that they don’t want to hear me. They are all complicit in grave crimes against humanity. They have choices, yet they choose to be modern day slave masters, they choose to support the system that tossed most of us in to the ovens of injustice we could never escape as small children. One day they will be looked upon as the most vile propagators of systemic abuse and racism in history.

Lifers see through their nonsense easier than others and we don’t run from truth when we find it. Short timers, and some clueless staff, sometimes like spout off what they would do if they had Life sentences. We usually just humor them. They are ridiculous in the extreme, and their opinions are too absurd to respond to. But we smile, and accept their covert insults as we would accept the imaginings of a small child talking about what they’d do if they lived on the moon.

We live our lives in an increasingly calculated way, predicting and navigating the institutional paranoia of our captors. We are aware that we Lifers are their most lucrative product. We see their underhanded plans of increasing recidivism under the guise of programs that ready convicts for freedom. We see the youngsters come back again and again, aware that the Department programmed them to do just that.

We are also aware that we Lifers have a unique perspective. We are aware that we are the population most likely to think outside of this box. We are the most connected, the most educated, and the most prolific at whatever our art is. We are resourceful and we are deliberate. When people offer to help us we take that seriously whether it is forwarding emails, making calls, publishing work on sites, selling art for Palestine…whatever it is, if it helps, we do it. We are being awakened to our plight, and striving to awaken others. When the short timers leave here it is we, the Lifers, they reach out to first. They look to us to remind them of the value of their liberation.

There are many ways to throw wrenches into the cogs of this machine that survives on devouring our souls. We Lifers continue to make a new art of it. We don’t lay down passively to make no waves until we die as they would have us do. Our refusal to submit to the beast connects us to all who know this slavery too can be abolished.

Whatever resistance one finds
Is adhesive through ages that binds
Free and enslaved inclines
To strengthen and empower Life minds.

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WEAKENED BY FRAUDS
by Shajiyah
10/18/25

We are not in prison to have fun. We are not here to find pleasant ways to pass the time and pretend like nothing is wrong. We are not here to be coddled by affirmations or to be praised by our enemies. We are here because we did things others disagree with and they had the power to throw us away like garbage. We are here because society owes a debt to its captives that one day it will pay. And we should be paying attention.

It is much more difficult to regain and retain strength in prison. We are under constant attack in one form or another. We are programmed to not acknowledge attacks for what they are and not to talk about them, as all abuse comes with this caveat. We are trained to think so little of ourselves that we become accustomed to being treated in ways less than we deserve. The corollary is that we begin to treat ourselves in ways less than we deserve.

Our foul captors believe we are due nothing but pain, discomfort, sickness and death. They complain that we have tablets, a piece of fruit every day, have any education opportunities and air conditioning. Every basic human decency or right we manage to obtain is an affront to their corrupt sense of superiority. And every single good thing we have was fought for by convicts and our comrades at much expense of time, money and struggle. Nothing was freely given to us by our slavers with the keys. They say, “We gave you an inch now you want a mile.” No bitch, we want e.v.e.r.y.t.h.i.n.g.

We have been weakened by having our esteem chipped away at by so many frauds for so long we begin to do it to ourselves. We don’t know how to stop diminishing ourselves, and we don’t know how to not let others break us down. The ways we defend ourselves are even used to attack us. We are expected to quietly accept every foulness forced upon us. We are supposed to believe that we deserve nothing better, nothing more than whatever shit others feel like pouring on us from their lofty, entitled positions. We are supposed to “Thank you Massa” every little thing they do for us that our brothers and sisters forced them to do under injunction after injunction. We are expected to pretend their infrequent unforced kindnesses aren’t bribes to buy trust or respect. We are directed to focus on their empty words not the cage. We are encouraged to twist the definition of “positive” into what the pigs and their pets display as peace and happiness which ends in death and destruction.

We are weakened by the oxymorons spewed by prison officials and their supporters. Some officials who happily go about earning their livelihood off of our grief have taken to sending out what some say are intended as “uplifting” messages. Like a smiling slave master condescendingly patting us on the head between beatings.

After struggling for several weeks over feeling as if I wronged three of my sisters by ardently recommending them to partake of something that ended up harming them, my friend handed me her tablet two days ago and insisted I read an email on it. Others said it was a bad idea, knowing I don’t read emails from pigs for good reason.

The message was from an administrator to the whole population. In it he called us “supporters” specifically mentioning our “unwavering support”. He referred to us participating in one of the ways they exploit us as “generosity” and conflated the us and them by speaking of “our community”. Is it possible our captors see their manipulative, murderous tactics as kindnesses? A wise man tells us, “They don’t know.”

Of course pigs are manipulative, but murderous? They lie as a practice to rob us of our lives, rob our children of their parents, rob the world of our talents. Lying to themselves to believe this system is not a white supremacist evil. Turning reality in a way that allows them to pretend prison is a necessity for the good of society. But murderous tactics? Is that an exaggeration? Not even a little bit.

We are weakened by their disregard for our lives. They kill us in too many ways to name. They suffocate our spirits. They smother our voices. They spat their wickedness in our faces. They turn convicts to their side by convincing some that they are good slave masters or by giving gifts. They strip us daily of all forms of dignity. They steal our hours, days, years, decades, and our whole lives. They kill us and call murder a security measure. They are true to white supremacist hate- form.

Let me clarify white supremacist. I do not mean those of you studying systemic abuses who are coming into the work of abolition with the baggage of racial prejudice. Every single one of you that I know, like so many of us, didn’t understand the monstrous machine racism has become. Dr Allen taught us the difference between racism and prejudice. Although prejudice might be bad, that is not what I am referring to at all. Some of you don’t like me because I am black. Your prejudice is your own, as mine is my own. I do not know your past, your family, your faith or your reasons for your views. I do know your prejudice has not stopped us from learning, growing, and working together. Our captors use race to divide us, we have to rise above that pathetic strategy. We all came together when we needed to outside, and we can do the same inside, lovely enemies of my enemy.

I know white, Black, Mexican, Asian and Native white supremacists. All cops support white supremacist institutions regardless of their race or professed views. People come in here in many guises to exploit us. They seek to keep us in our place, to control when and how we speak up, and quell our desire to speak out. They see ways to profit off of us and they seek “supporters” of their schemes. They offer us basic things that we need and sell them to us at high costs (emotionally and/or monetarily). They call our painful expenditure “generosity”. They manipulate slaves into taking their part, and then bask in the deception of having gained “unwavering support” from “our community” which is decidedly NOT their community. They want us to believe they are for us as they slowly, cruelly drain away our existence for themselves.

We, women in prison, are weakened and used. Our emotional frailty is a weapon outsiders can easily fashion to crush our spirits with a well placed word, or two words. They come in because they see a way to help themselves, whether to get a government paycheck, or a paycheck of some other kind.

I hear snitches and supporters of snitches use the word “integrity” and I think again of the wise man saying, “They don’t know.” I hear those who harm us in the same ways cops harm us through lying, manipulating, insults and violence say they didn’t mean any harm. Again I hear the words of the wise man insisting in my mind, “They don’t know.” I see my pain and my sisters’ pain and I can’t summon from within myself the ability to give a fuck that they may not know.

My daughter awaits my writing for unnatural-life. I have struggled putting pen to paper these past few weeks, not knowing if I ever would again in my own name. Little Sister cannot climb out from under the weight of the last attack, even to obtain unquestionably beneficial knowledge. I continue to pull myself over hot coals to gain knowledge to share, and to remind others we can’t give up. But God knows it is hard. One Sister asks me how I could let one fool in particular make me feel so bad for so long, make me doubt my worth and my mission? She questions why I didn’t distance myself from the obvious harm early on when she did?

We are all weakened women in prison. We are weakened in some similar ways and in some very different ways. I am weakened by ideals. I make excuses for those I should not (for a minute) as a way of taking a tiny nail file to my monumental stone expectations. It isn’t that I don’t see, but that I don’t want to see. It is a dangerous weakness because there is always collateral damage.

What do we do, as weakened women, surrounded by those who feed off of our enslavement? What do we do when we see inmates cozied upon with abusers supporting their harms? What do we do as our dignity is pealed away until we feel we have none left? What do we do when we are screamed at, lied about and ridiculed? What do we do when the “them” perpetually divides the “us” by eliciting the “unwavering support” of the self-centered in our population? What do we do when we watch those we love suffer so intensely from the actions of plain clothed and uniformed embezzlers of hope? These questions are not rhetorical, our survival hinges on striving to answer them in ways that we can live with.

I often don’t know what to do. I am at a new crossroads every few steps. I wrestled these past few weeks with asking people to accompany me in my search for knowledge. I see my Sisters hurting from my suggestions and I hold myself responsible. I didn’t thoroughly test a situation and three of my closest Sisters have suffered trauma due to my failure.

I can only do my best. And I can now only lead women to tried and true sources, sources tested by fire, sources who don’t fold or break under questioning. Anyone telling me to hide truths about the reality of this cage, or about the enemy in general, has joined the enemy’s ranks.

I am humbled by the grace in which others can distribute truth. But I must do it in my own way with my sharp edges stabbing all who come near from any direction. We are weakened women, as a result we have developed curious defenses. We are creative in everything we do, because we have to be.
Even in our weakened state we are stronger than we are given credit for. We are smarter than our enemies by degrees that are shocking. We are so much more capable of all things than they realize. We have women here from all walks of life willing to share knowledge. We have women with fantastic achievements that our enemies could never obtain. We do not need encouragement from our oppressors, we need it from each other.

A wise man told us a couple of years ago, “You can do things on your own” and I believed them. That night took others to the field to begin the clumsy effort of testing their hypothesis. To be almost fifty before learning about autonomy is tragic. All who pass near to me in this cage will have exposure to what autonomy is to the best of my ability. The weakening by the frauds is eliminated by the strength found in autonomous endeavors. Our oppressors want us to believe we need them. We don’t. They need us. That is how slavery works in all of its forms.

As our bags of pain grow heavier and heavier our strength increases incrementally. And our determination to help others in our community carry burdens increases as well. We cannot count on the world to care and our comrades outside are few. We don’t need to be seeking comfort and distraction, fun and satisfaction. We need to be paying attention to every oppressors true intention.

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THEY DON’T CARE
by Shajiyah 10/20/25

We should all be asking the people around us what they think about Palestine. I don’t mean to ask them if they think the stolen land called Israel should be given back to the Palestinians? Or if they think America supporting the Israeli terrorists should have consequences? The last Jew I tried to have that talk with would only say, “That’s a lot, that’s a lot.” The last Christian I tried to have that talk with told on me. Maybe not those questions?

Maybe general questions in everyday situations we find ourselves in like, “What are your thoughts about Palestine?” I need to be reminded frequently who doesn’t care about Palestine because those people cannot be trusted in any capacity. What’s happening in Palestine is not a regional problem, it is a human problem. A lack of concern for Palestine and Palestinians reveals a dangerously corrupt soul.

It seems that the most common denominator for those who don’t care about Palestine is selfishness. The people who don’t care live every day of their lives focused completely on what benefits them. They do things for others but only if it earns them something in return. It does them no good in their personal lives to care, and they lack the ability to grieve for people not directly connected to them.

I have been out among my people and staff these past couple of days asking about what (or if) people think about Palestine. Palestine changed my entire view of the world. My heart had been broken early on when those I thought would be on the front lines to support Palestine were not. Persistently asking questions and trying to understand the excuses I received for their refusal to assist caused me to leave my School, which had consequences. I have been trying to comprehend what the neglect of Palestine means on many levels.

Individuals who don’t care about Palestine seem to be incredibly superficial. They are shallow in all things they engage in. They aren’t interested in earth shattering occurrences because they lack the capacity to be. They are so easily distracted by all the nothingness they comfort themselves with that they can’t be bothered to think about anything profound. Some people we want to believe are intelligent cannot process the information they receive. They can dance around in circles, but they cannot move forward. For them it isn’t learning that is a problem, it is using knowledge to benefit others.

We all learn differently. I have learning issues and so do others close to me. I have one Sister who has to read things several times to understand them. Another Sister comprehends best by being read to. One of the ways I am limited is that I am too skeptical to easily contemplate grey areas. Knowing this about myself I maneuver what interactions I can into the black and white so I don’t screw things up too badly.

Because of this flaw I thought that maybe I was asking people the wrong questions? Or more likely, asking the right questions in the wrong way? I cannot get answers that make sense to me. Not understanding something, for whatever reason, doesn’t mean we should stop trying.

I want to understand so I can help my people tie us to our brothers and sisters who are suffering in other places. My hope is that those who are capable of seeing the connection will be able to see our beauty, our power and our potential. Seeing Blacks and Mexicans at a Trump rally is no more appalling than seeing convicts giving their unwavering support to cops. If they can see who we are they will stop thinking everything in uniform or plain clothes is superior to us. If they see Palestine and understand their struggles and their successes they can see cruel regimes don’t have to be accepted, and tyrants don’t have to be respected.

Indifference is a common disease in America. It is encouraged as it is required for all forms of selfishness, and the selfish are easy to control through pats on the head and bribes. Understanding why people don’t care is probably not going to happen for some of us. But finding ways to reach people, or get them to a place where they can be reached, is crucial. There are things we can do to help and it will never feel like we are doing enough. And that’s ok. They don’t know, yet. They don’t care, yet.

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Convicts, Prisoners, Incarcerees, Slaves – by Shajiyah

, Convicts, Prisoners, Incarcerees, Slaves, Are still people. We are human beings. The fact that i need to say that says more about you, O upstanding citizen, than it does about me.

My recently freed sister is making this site for me, an uncensored place we can talk with you. “We”-humans in cages. “You”-free humans. A place we be told our words are too raw, too harsh, too real.

Nothing about prison, or any other iteration of slavery, is natural. Unnaturallife.org doesn’t give you a glimpse of women living for a while in prison. Unnaturallife.org gives you insight into women who will die in prison. Forgotten, Neglected, abandoned, slandered, discarded, unworthy. Yet Still the prisons most valuable slaves, the most lucrative commodity

We seek to show you the Lifer’s sentence of Death thru Life. And to prove that humans, any humans, should not be enslaved. Should not live in a cage. For Life. Or for a year & a day.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?
You can collect your change and put it on a political prisoner’s books once a month so they can make phone calls, make copies, help other prisoners, have postage and be ready to sue when retaliated against.

You can be careful not to support prisoners who pretend to be supportive of others but are not. Read the interviews here, harms are named in the dialogue. Avoid pigs-pets, 50-50, cops in orange.

You can support honorable Professors who come into prisons year after year to freely share their kindness, knowledge and wisdom.
You can be very careful not to support “Prison Reform” and support only “Prison Abolition”. Enough is enough. Abolition is an inevitability.
You can avoid supporting Inkarcerated and other places who use some of their profit to support prisons and prison staff. Check these places and where all their money actually goes. If you want to support a convict or their kids, write a convict and do that. If you want convict art, write a political prisoner in whatever prison you choose and they will know of artists far better on the yard than those working to support the prison.

You can go to my Resource section and write the free book places and have books sent in to convicts. Tell your friends inside you sent them because prison staff have started stealing invoices so we don’t know who to thank for our books.

You can purchase books from Haymarket for yourself and your friends about what is going on in the world.

You can be willing to call Central Office when your friends inside are harmed by cops. You can be willing to call the ACLU if Central doesn’t do anything.
You can refuse to abandon your friends and family inside because we might become inconvenient. If you have abandoned your people, reach out again. You’re already forgiven. Life is hard inside.

You can be willing to network for your friends inside. Make one phone call a month for them, post an email of messages somewhere once a month for them. Help political prisoners stay connected to the world. It might literally save their life.

You can send subscriptions of Prison Legal News to your political prisoner friends. PLN has done amazing work fighting for convict’s First Amendment rights and teaching us how to do the same. Every cent you spend on a subscription funds legal action against prisons. PLN is the real deal.
You can refuse to support right-wing, evangelical, christianizing, fundamentalist, genocide/ israeli terrorist supporting groups like Prison Fellowship who are actively colonizing prisons.

You can make “Fuck The Police” your philosophy, your lifestyle, your religious war against oppression, your mantra. You can be a huge part of this war and help heal the world of sickness without even leaving your house.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INTERVIEWS

MAMA JOYCE INTERVIEW

HTMD Interviewwith Joycie 6/14/24
Shajiyah interviewing Mama Joyce from June of 2024. The smoking section had been temporarily closed and all smoking had to be moved to the Main Yard Rec Cage because the cops feared someone would burn down the Army tents they placed on each Yard. Mama Joyce and I sat at a table in the C Yard smoking section on Santa Cruz for this interview since it was empty. Mama Joyce is a wonderful woman who moves slowly and deliberately, and speaks the same way, with a slight southern accent. Mamma Joyce is the most respected of all the elders on Santa Cruz Unit.
SI- Mama Joyce, we’ll start with the regular questions that everyone can answer before we get to some things most of us have no knowledge of. What is your political affiliation and your religion?
MJ- I don’t know what my political affiliation is right now, with the two options we have (Joe Biden and Donald Trump) I just don’t know. If I had to vote I just wouldn’t. And I’ve been Catholic all my life.
SI- What is you sexual preference?
MJ- I’m a straight female. I’ve never been with a woman in here is out there, I’m strictly dickly.
SI- What is your race and where do your people come from?
MJ- Heinz 57. I wanted to do a family tree but never did. My mom’s side is from Ireland but my dad is darker.
SI- Mama Joyce, how many years have you been in prison?
MJ- 36 years, I’m an interstate compact from Delaware, I got here to Perryville in 1991.
SI- Do you have an out date?
MJ- I’m a Lifer.
SI- Natural Life?
MJ- Yes.
SI- Did you appeal?
MJ- Yes, when I was first sentenced. I had a 5 week long trial and the jury took 3 weeks to deliberate.
SI- Did you think you’d be found guilty?
MJ- No. I claimed innocence, I still do. My co-defendant, husband at the time, told me I had to testify or he’d do something to my family, and I knew he had the power to do it. The jury didn’t want to give me guilty on an F1 (1st Degree Murder/ Felony 1) they only wanted to give me Accomplice. I knew I was going down when the judge told the jury they could only go for the F1.
SI- Mama Joyce, you’ve been in prison 36 years, the public thinks prisons treat inmates better than they used to, we know that is not true. In what ways have you seen the prison decline most in the last three decades?
MJ- Back in the day DOC ran everything, the Store, the food, everything belonged to DOC. There weren’t outside contracts for everything. Staff were not as disrespectful as they are now, if you had something you needed to take care of, you could just go to them and they treated inmates like people. Cell changes were allowed when people couldn’t live together so there was less violence. We had keys to our own cells. There were no blanket punishments.
SI- What initiated the negative downfall?
MJ- We had a DW from Illinois that was really good. After that we got Director Chuck Ryan in 2001, that’s when things got really, really bad.
They took all our stuff away.
SI- What stuff did they take away?
MJ- Chuck Ryan made it so everything had to be clear (see through plastic appliances/electronics). Before Chuck families could send TVs, and they could send three 25 pound food boxes. We had Coleman ice chests, crock pots and curling irons. Chuck Ryan took away everything.
SI- What was Medical like back then?
MJ- You could put in an HNR (Health Needs Request form) and be seen by a Doctor, Dental or whatever you needed all in one building on Santa Maria (Unit).
SI- What do you think contributes to the ways staff treat us now that differs from 36 years ago?
MJ- These staff, it’s all about power with them. Disrespectful cops train new cops to be the same way. Sometimes when you’re used to them being one way, they flip, that’s what’s sad.
SI- At what point did the cops start becoming so disrespectful?
MJ- Under Chuck Ryan. He was bad, the DWs got worse, and then the cops got worse too.
SI- Do you think our staff treat us bad because of Central Office? Do you think discontent trickles down?
MJ- I was here, then on Lumley, then back here (Cruz) and I know it’s gotten worse over here. It feels like we’re living in a dictatorship.
SI- Even with Swane?

MJ- Yes, because we don’t see her enough. When I got over here I had to fight for everything. We shouldn’t have to fight so much for every little thing. Even when they say to go through the chain of command, no one wants to be bothered. I even had to fight to get my wheelchair.
SI- What else is different?
MJ- There wasn’t as many fights as there are now, there’s always fights now, every time you look around. The disrespect is all the way around.
SI- What jobs did they have here that are different from what we have available now?
MJ- I had a Data Entry job, and back then you could have 2 jobs if you wanted to. Everything with jobs has changed so much.
SI- What’s different from the food?
MJ- Back then you could go into the kitchen and order sunny side up eggs, or whatever kind of eggs you wanted, and the girls would cook them. There was real toast and biscuits. There was rotisserie meats and breads.
SI- How did that work with the chow schedules?
MJ- Back then every yard had a kitchen and we could just go in. It wasn’t like now with one kitchen for the whole Unit.
SI- Do you think our prison is ran strictly as a money making machine?
MJ- Yes, take a look at this (pointing to the Army tent they set up as a cooling station). The ACs won’t be up and working until probably November. And what do you think is going to go on in there (referencing the tent again)?
SI- Do you think that inmates can make changes to how we are treated and how the prison is ran? If yes, what would it take for that to happen?
MJ- Yes, I think we could make a difference. I think…back to staff again… they would have to be not so happy to give tickets. Ticket this, ticket that, all day. The cops are way too ticket happy, they have terir rules and regs, but they don’t take into consideration what it’s like. Give them a week locked in cell. The inmates could run this place better. Staff have no consistency.
SI- After 36 years in the inmate population, what do you think it would take for inmates to stick together?
MJ- It’s never going to happen. Years ago when the cops were going to stop room visiting, back when we were allowed to go into each others cells and watch TV or eat or whatever with other people, they stopped that. The girls all decided to do a walk, like a march for their rights, only 5 showed up out of the hundred that had said, “We’ll do it! We’ll do it!” The DW came down and accused the 5 of us that stayed with it of “attempting to start a riot” and we went to the Hole.
SI- Why do you think no one showed up?
MJ- They were afraid their make-up would get taken away. They were afraid the cops were going to come in and tear the place up.
SI- Have you ever seen a change made by inmates standing together in 36 years?
MJ- One time. Our electric and water were turned off. We needed water and we wanted bottled water. Everybody refused to lock down. Everybody.
SI- How long did it take the cops to comply with your demand?
MJ- One hour. We stood strong, all of us. I’m the type if I believe in something I’m going to stand strong on it.
SI- What do you think it would take to get the population to care more about change than comfort?
MJ- A lot of women are trying out to go do that same things they did that brought them here, I’ve heard them. These girls have never gotten love in their lives, they done know what love is. They need to be talked to, to be shown that someone cares. They have such resentment, it’s sad. I grew up when people stood up for things, people stood up for what they believe in. These girls need love.
SI- You say that the girls need love? Do you think we, the elders and the Lifers, should implement some type of Adopt A Brat program?
MJ- We used to have a program where the kids came in that Scared Straight Program for us to talk to them, to tell them what it’s really like. When it started working, they stopped the program.
SI- What about inside, if we tried once they come inside as convicts?
MJ- Yes, I do it already, I try to take in some new ones, to show them love, but some people tell me to stop. Sometimes the girls just need someone to listen to them.
SI- Why would anyone want you to stop that?
MJ- They don’t like that it takes away from them. A lot of people are selfish. I’m going to keep doing what I do and keep on caring for others.
SI- What is the primary objective of your life?
MJ- Well, I’ve lost my mother, my father, my sister, and my daughter. I’ve got grand children and great grand children that I’ve never seen. I want to see them.
SI- Do you have a way to try to make that happen?
MJ- I’ve talked to my granddaughter…it takes so long to get anything done here. You didn’t used to have to have to put in applications, people just came in to see you. You could just call people.
SI- What else do you want to do with your life Mama Joyce?
MJ- I like to learn new things. I’ve had 2 strokes. They said I’d never walk again. I couldn’t use my left side at all, my brain is damaged. If we got interrupted I’d have to ask you what I was talking about.
SI- I’ve recently seen the smartest people I’ve ever met in my life do that Joycie, I think you’re just fine.
MJ- I’m the type of person that I love everybody, I don’t care what you’ve done or what religion you are. I love people for who they are. That’s what I want to do with my life, love people.

 INTERVIEW WITH DILLON
Shajiyah interviewing Dillon Vermuele #249024 in Dillon's cell, C31-07, Santa Cruz Unit, Monday 5/26/25 after 4pm Count cleared
SI - Before we start I want you to know that this interview will be public on unnaturallife.org and the pigs from down here
from lowest level up to Central Office could see it some point. Is that OK?
DV - Yes.
SI- And I need you to know unnatuallife.org might develop into a full 'fuck the police' type site designed to get the voices of
specifically lifers and long timers out. Is that OK?
DV - Yes.
SI- How long have you been down and what is your sentence?
DV - I've been down 16.5 and I have Natural Life. Life With Out Parole.
SI - Where else have you done time?
DV - CIW, CRC, VSP, and Chowchilla.
SI - How much time have you done in your life and how old are you now?
DV - I've done...? All the time I've served? 40 years all together. And I'm 68 years old. If I had known about Arizona I
would have taken the plea for 7 years.
SI - Dillon. You refused to sign a plea for 7 years so they gave you Natural Life?
DV - Yes. And no one would help me. No one had funding to help me. They said a first year law student could have won
my case.
SI - Tell me about this prison.
DV - This prison is inconsistent. I've been in other prisons and I have much in my life to compare this shit to. This
place...I've never seen anything like this shit in my life. No other prison even comes close to being as crappy as this
prison.
SI - What is wrong with this prison?
DV - The staff are disrespectful. They make our time harder. The don't have to do that. I had been out 20 years so I wasn't
institutionalized like the people coming in now. In California you do a day and get a day, they are 50%. I was out 20 years
and got a DUI in 2001. Then I got here. In Max... In Max...
SI - Dill, what happened in the Hole? That's what you mean by Max, right? 30 yard?
DV - Yes. In Max I experienced the most suffering. After 36 years without having a nervous breakdown I had one in Max. I
was assaulted by staff. I had a nervous breakdown. The ACLU has been fighting that assault for almost 7 years.
SI - How did staff treat you when they realized you were getting help from the ACLU?
DV - First they turned the water off in my cell and took all my toilet paper. Then when my toilet was off they fixed it so
when the girls around flushed all their piss and shit and toilet paper came up out of my toilet onto my floor. It came up into
my room. It flooded my floor. They left my cell flooded with piss and shit for 48 hours. On graves (graveyard shift) A Seargent came to my cell to see why I wasn't eating and saw my cell. I hadn't eaten for 14 days since the assault. I was
scared. They had roofied me in my meals. That Seargent that checked on me would stay late in the mornings to bring me
food after that so I could eat.
SI - Do you remember Smilez? (Cynthia Apkaw killed in the Hole in 2015. Listed as suicide.)
DV - Smilez had seen the cops assault me. She had seen the officers enter my room. She could see my cell from hers.
When she saws my body afterwards she told me she had seen them. She saw what they did to me. Thomas (female red
hair), Multer, and Angus (female brunette) had tried to help me but Medical refused to help. Admin put me on watch to
investigate the accusations. They took my letter I wrote to the ACLU and my letter to my POA (power of attorney). They
opened both letters, which were legal mail, and then extracted me from my cell. They put me on watch with no I.D. for 21
days. On graves 2 cops would come in and threaten me. They would tell me no one would miss me. They said no one
knew where I was and so I should just kill myself.
SI - Did they kill Smilez?
DV - Yes. They killed Smilez. Smilez, was my only witness and they killed her. And some good officers got fired over
Smilez.
SI - How did you act after the assault?
DV - I would crawl under my bunk and hide there. I was under there hiding. I was so scared he was going to get me. He
usually made sure his keys were loud and his radio was loud, most times. But when he was going to assault me he was
quiet. He was so quiet.
SI - Is he still here? Or the others?
DV - I dont know where the main one is? He was here up until I came to Medium. It was fucked up, Angel, it was so
fucked up. My God. Two of them still work on Lumley.
SI - What year was this?
DV - 2015
SI - How did it stop?
DV - When they brought Jodi Aries in she had some people with her. Reporters or lawyers or something. I started
screaming, "Help! Help! Nobody knows I'm back here! Theyre holding my hostage! Nobody knows what happened to
me!". Maybe they were reporters? Maybe not lawyers, because they asked questions. I got some letters out and nobody
knows how. Then DW Scott let me off watch.
SI - Perryville right now. This Programmification / Humanization shit they are doing. Do you think we should get serious
about educating the kids coming in?
DV - Yes. There's so many young kids coming in. And the young cops are so easy to pursue. They are so quick to do
favors for the kids. They are too easy...
SI - Is that a bad thing? Pliable, weak, persuadable cops?
DV - Yes, it is bad. These kids need to have a safety net. They need education and business training. They have no
where to go when they get out. They are homeless now. They get out to the street and what can you do then? All these
kids can do is prostitute, do home invasions or sell drugs. Yes, its a bad thing. They aren't learning anything. They are just
hustling dumb cops. They need businesses that will hire them. They need training. Day labor won't give them a place to
sleep. This isn't how to do time.

SI - You are describing a cycle Dillon. Do you think it is by design that people have nothing to do except return to crime?
DV - Yes. In this State definitely. If they can't take the ones we call Polly Programmers, and keep them out, no one can
stay out. They can't even stay out. They programs don't work. They aren't supposed to. In here people get a job for 10¢
an hour. In other States people make dollars not cents. Without inmates nothing works in here. Inmates run this place.
Inmates do everything. If we stopped working they'd have to work. The food, the grounds, the trash, everything. Without
us nothing could get done. But they pay us 10¢? Arizona makes it so you have to have Mandatory testing and a GED to
make more that 10¢ an hour. One journalist went to Florence and Lewis... I can't remember which one...?
SI - Was it Jimmy?
DV - I don't think so, I think it was David...I dont remember? He visited old men, Lifers, who were no threat to society. He
said where they were was filthy, a filthy Medical Unit. He said, "When did humans stop having compassion?". It was in the
paper back then. That's what he ended his article with, "When did humans stop having compassion?"
SI - What is another problem?
DV - The officers do a lot of racial profiling. They don't need a reason to do it. They have fucked up lives out there and
they come in here and take it out on us. They see a system that doesn't work and they do whatever they want. If you talk
to any officer thats been here more than ten years they just want to retire. They just want to get out. The higher ups treat
staff bad. Then the low staff treat us worse.
SI - What could make this place run better?
DV - Most prisons have one Warden and one Deputy Warden. Not a Deputy Warden for every Unit.
SI - And we have 6 or 7 Dws ?
DV - Yeah, and that's messed up. Nothing can be consistent like that. Nothing is run the same Unit to Unit.
SI - Do you think moving Unit to Unit dramatically increases our trauma?
DV - Yes.
SI - Do you think they do that to purposely increase our trauma?
DV - They do it to increase our pain. They love to make us as uncomfortable as possible. They want us miserable. We are
here for Life. We get here and they tell us, "Settle in!" We do what we can, we have crafts, and art...then they come in and
they shake and throw all our stuff away. Nothing lethal, no weapons...they say they take our stuff because there are too
many fights, or too many cry babies. We need Yard Reps to take our complaints up there for us. Town Hall was supposed
to be that but it ain't.
SI - Are there any inmates up front who represent the general population?
DV - No. They pick the young ones, and Dre...she's on her own trip, just a very good manipulator. They like selfish
inmates who don't do any serious time.
SI - If you could have anything in here what would it be?
DV - An entertainment center for my TV, bible, folders and cup of pens. So all my stuff is together.
SI - Do you mean the entertainment centers people make out of cardboard on the yard?
DV - Yes. Mine was taken in the last shake. Cuen and Lowe said they are waiting for word from Central if we can have
entertainment systems just the size of our banker boxes.
SI - Dillon, do you think you will ever get out of here alive?
DV - Yes. My hope is in Katie Hobbs. She has an excon, Carrie, who went to work for the ACLU. Now she is telling Katie
what is really going on. Katie knows how the cops block the people from seeing everything. She knows how they only
show the people the inmates up front who would never help us. They'll never let anybody walk this whole motherfucker.
They won't ever see us own here.
SI - Do you think female inmates will ever work together to fight for our rights?
DV - Yes. We just need more consistent civility. Us older inmates need to get back to reading body language, to paying
attention when the kids aint right, not talkative or whatever. Us old timers, we're just waiting for God to call us home, you
know? And the kids got nothing but drama. We have to stop fighting each other and direct all that energy and anger
towards the real problem.
SI - Amen

INTERVIEW WITH COVER GIRL
Shajiyah interviewing Anesha “Covergirl” Bright #200734 on Main Yard of Santa Cruz Unit on 6/2/25 after Ice Call at approximately 8am.
SI – Before we start I want you to know that this interview will be public on unnatural-life.org and the pigs from down here up to Central Office will see it. Is that OK?
CG – Yes.
SI – My questions will seem scattered, is that OK?
CG – I know how you think Sister. Thats fine.
SI – OK, how old were you when you first got locked up?
CG – 13 years old.
SI – Where all has be you been locked up?
CG – Besides Arizona I’ve been in jail in Florida, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts and Texas.
SI – When did you first come to prison in Arizona?
CG – September 29th 2006. I had a six year sentence but I cut my girlfriend and got another six years
SI – You shanked your girlfriend?
CG – Yes. I got a new Premeditated Aggravated Assault charge. My bunkie said she saw me making shanks two weeks before.
SI – When you do time, why do you hang out with Lifers?
CG – Because you guys move differently.
SI – How do we move differently?
CG – You guys are calmer. You are more settled. You do your time and don’t let time do you.
SI – This is going to be public, Sis. I need you to explain what “do time and don’t let time do you” means to people who have never been down who might read this.
CG – OK. When people do time they control the time. They control how they move through that time. They are thoughtful, aware. They control who they interact with for reasons non Lifers don’t even think about. People who let time do them are rowdy, into drama, depressed and all that shit. I don’t know how to explain it…
SI – You doing great.
CG – Non Lifers are different …they whine, and complain about their time. They can be sneaky. There are a couple sneaky Lifers but we all know to stay away from Officer-Inmates, pigs-pets. Those ones complain about their time too. Real Lifers…we never hear you guys complaining about your time. We don’t see you guys sad and depressed, or walking around stupid.
SI – How do you feel when you stop through and then go home and leave us here?
CG – It makes me extremely sad for a long time. It hurts.
SI – Do you keep in contact with your friends?
CG – I always keep in touch with you. I will never leave you. Even though I get out.
SI – Why is it important to keep in touch with your people inside?
CG – Because I don’t ever intend to come back. I will never see you again. I don’t ever plan on coming back so I feel like I am leaving you behind for the rest of my life. I want to keep updating you on what’s going on with me. On what’s going on in the world you can’t see. So many people have left you. I won’t do that.
SI – Why do you think the American Injustice System exists? Do you think it deters crime, or protects society?
CG – It exists to make money. If you’re rich enough you can commit any crime. They will put a couple rich people in prison, only if forced by the public. But the Criminal Justice System is not about truth, or justice, or crime. It is all about money.
SI – What do you think it would take for people to stop snitching on each other?
CG – Nothing but death will stop them.
SI – This situation yesterday… Do you think theyve been snitching this whole time? (Two accused snitches allegedly got beat up by several people and were removed from the Unit for their safety.)
CG – Yes, they was snitching the whole time. It finally caught up with them.
SI – Is someone a snitch who tells on someone once?
CG – No. Snitches live their lives doing it. Like Dre.
SI – Do you think it is possible to have a community where people don’t tell on each other?
CG – No. It’s not possible. Snitches would have to experience being told on to understand. A lot of people don’t tell on people because they know how it feels.
SI – Do you think they tell because they believe pigs are better than inmates?
CG – Yes. I think a lot of people think that. A lot of people don’t understand that cops are just as big of criminals as inmates. They just haven’t been caught.
SI – Do you want pigs to be caught and put in prison?
CG – Hell no! We don’t want that shit down here with us.
SI – Back to where we shifted gears, in the Criminal Injustice System, what percentage of people could cops put in prison without snitches?
CG – Maybe 25%. They’re stupid. They need snitches. Prisons couldn’t fill the beds without snitches. They can’t figure shit out on their own.
SI – Shifting. Do you think if more women became politicized and sued the prisons pigs would behave differently?
CG – Yes. The pigs and the whole system would run differently. I don’t know why we always wait for the men to sue? Yes, if there’s enough lawsuits things would be unveiled, revealed. They’d have to change.
SI – Is that snitching?
CG – No. It is not snitching. We aren’t taking them to Criminal Courts. Snitching would be talking to Detectives to get the cops or staff arrested. Suing is what they call justice. That’s their rules. They’d rather us sue than give them what we call justice.
SI – If I sue you, would that be snitching?
CG – No. That’s not criminal.
SI – When little five-foot-one 110 pound Anna got raped in the Mail Room by the two cops and told, was that snitching?
CG – She didn’t snitch that off, her bunkie did. And yes, that is snitching. Anna should just cut their dicks off. Or bit them off.
SI – Everybody isn’t capable of being so practical in traumatic moments. And everyone isn’t capable of the violence required to fight back. Not everyone can fight back. And those are both big cops.
CG – Rape is criminal. If she sues the rapists or the prison it is not snitching. They didn’t go to jail so maybe it isn’t snitching…
SI – There are people who believe anything we do to pigs, in any way, at any time is justified. And since pigs are the epitome, the purest essence, of snitches then telling on them is required. You disagree?
CG – I’ve never been raped. You were mad when our sister got raped by Officer Brother back in ’13 or ’14 and he got taken off the yard.
SI – I was mad because the percocet wouldn’t be coming into the Hole and people would be sick. And I had to be educated by sisters brothers. I had to be schooled on the fact that whatever we say about them cannot be snitchin because of the foulness of their position.
CG – I don’t deal with all that syndicate shit. Its too much.
SI – Neither do I. Do you think if more people were educated on the inherent foulness of the System and its components people would be less willing to snitch on each other?
CG – Yes. They’d realize cops are the biggest criminals. They’d realize what cops actually get away with by having their little badges. They’d see how bad cops really are for the world.
SI – If pigs were sentenced and put in a cell, how long do you think it would take for them to realize what they truly are? What they’ve truly done to people?
CG – Immediately. They’d see how we are treated from our perspective. They’d see there is no excuse for this shit. They’d see how fucked up they are as humans.
SI – You give them a lot of credit Sis.
CG – I do?
SI – Yes. Do you think Lifers should be treated differently?
CG – Yes. I think they should be allowed to be comfortable. The State makes much money off of you guys they should leave you guys the fuck alone. You guys move different, you should be respected. You could kill them easily with little consequence and you guys don’t. You leave them alone, they should leave you alone. And they shouldn’t move you guys around to hurt you like they do. You are here for the rest of your lives. They should take care of your medical, spiritual and mental needs. You live differently. All of you guys, except the greedy snitches like Dre stay away from cops. The cops should respect that. They should leave you guys alone unless you approach them for a specific reason. They should recognize you guys are stronger than them, and most of you are smarter than them. They shouldn’t fuck with Lifers like they do.
SI – If you could have anything while you are here, what would that be?
CG – For you to be free.
SI – Stop that shit Covergirl. If you could have anything…
CG – Your freedom. I want you to be free.
SI – …any tangible item in your cell, in prison…
CG – OK, ok! A minifridge.
SI – A clear, see-through minifridge?
CG – Yes.
SI – What do you think it would take for inmates to work together?
CG – To come to one accord which I can’t see females ever doing. Women would have to understand that just because most cops have dicks they are not really men. Women would have to stop looking up to what they think are men. We’d have to come together. Everyone would have to agree that we are us, and they are them. And we are better than them.
SI – How do we do that?
CG – I don’t know, Sister.
SI – How do we remember that pigs don’t ever have our best interest at heart?
CG – We study history, like that guy you talk about tells us. We study it, we learn it, we teach what we learn to others. Especially the kids. History shows us what these systems do. They destroy.
SI – That guy I talk about says that history doesn’t repeat itself, people repeat history. You think we can break abusive cycles?
CG – Yes. And one day I will get enough money to free you.
SI – Allah made me to fight from in here. Don’t give those freaks your money. I’ll stay.
CG – Then prison has to go.
SI – Yes, prison has to go.

INTERVIEW WITH MELISSA 
 Shajiyah interviewing Melissa Loyd #341484 in A21-10 on Santa Cruz Unit, 6/3/25 between 0900 and 1000.
SI - It has taken us a long time to coordinate our schedules to be able to do this. It's funny how people with jobs in here think they are busier than people who work every second of their day.
ML- I know! I'm glad we were able to finally get together!
SI - Before we start I want you to know that this interview will be public on unnatural-life.org and the pigs from down here up to Central Office will be able to see it. Is that OK?
ML- Yes. That's what I want. They should see it.
SI - Tell me about your time.
ML- I am 45, down almost 10 years since 2016, sentenced to 35 years, 1st time down.
SI - Since this is your first time down, tell me about your first impression of prison.
ML- My first impression of prison...well... I would say very isolated and very territorial. The higher ups are territorial. They deffinately don't like to be challenged.
SI - How are the higher ups territorial? Give me an example.
ML- When they are doing their things...Let's start with the fact that they are unprofessional. They are unprofessional and they don't follow their own policies. They don't respect their own policies. They are very territorial...they say things like, "This is my prison!" If you don't comply with what they say after you've become a target they are extremely territorial. Even if you are breaking no rules.
SI - What do you think we could do to change that?
ML- It would be nice if inmates actually stuck together and demanded adequate treatment. We could actually work towards reentry. This prison is getting paid for reentry and rehabilitation classes. But they prevent that from happening. We are being deprived.
SI - I see many rehabilitation classes and reentry classes happening. Do those classes not do what they claim to do?
ML- Those classes are just another way for the Department to make money. They are just collecting resources. There are no genuine classes for rehabilitation and reentry. I can count on one hand how many programs are real. There should be proof.
SI - How can you tell the real classes from the fake ones?
ML- For one, the real classes make sure they say things that make sense. When they say those things there is follow-up. There will be a support system in place if they are genuine. And they'll do what they say they are going to do. Really do it. Not just say they are going to do it. Every step will be tended to. The Department focuses on knocking you down. And if you get up and take a step up they see you as arrogant. They'll move you to break you down. They want you to stay down. Theyll continue to try to break you. They are paid criminals.
SI - Do you mean Admin are paid criminals? Or cops? Or the officer-inmates/ pigs-pets who work for them?
ML- All of them. It starts all the way at the top. The whole system is broken from the very top. They want to hurt people and get a check. They don't care about anyone. They won't even talk to me. I get their backs. I take that as a compliment.
SI - How do some inmates facilitate staff abuse?
ML- (beautiful laugh and a preacheresque...) Welllllll...So this is one of my favorite topics! If an inmate who is jealous of your intelligence or your will or your integrity or dignity or humility or maturity they will team up with the higher ups and snake-ishly...
SI - snake-ishly is the perfect word...
ML- yes, they snake-ishly, mmm, come on now! They snake-ishly begin to make you a target with Admin. They will do everything they can to prevent you from effectively and productively living your life. They want to take your support and destroy you. They want you to die. They want to rob you of your strength and your will to live. They want to rob you of the traits they cannot have.
SI - As you know, I use your story a lot to warn people against the dangers of officer-inmates/ pigs-pets who harm the population. What is the reason for those inmates having so much power to harm us?
ML- Fraternizing. I have experienced absolute hell due to inmates and their fraternizing. I have even gotten a fake ticket written up on me by an inmate.
SI - How do these administrative/ officer inmates get so much power?

ML- I believe the administrative officers inmates get so much power because they use the rest of us. They are quiet. They are sneaky. They are snake-ish. They keep the staff's secrets about what they do to us. It's an I scratch your back, you scratch mine situation. The inmates seek power to knock everyone else down. They seek to steal peace. To kill solace. That's how we end up with abuse after abuse after abuse. They couldn't hurt us so bad without inmate help.
SI - Didn't they move you?
ML- Yes. They moved me several times. They mocked me. They mocked me, they gaslighted me. They are disgusting. I still have officers who mock me over what she did. They still mock me for what happened with that move from C yard to this yard.
SI - How long ago was that?
ML- Almost a year? Or a year? How long has it been?
SI - I don't keep time well. It could have been a year? Did an officer-inmate have you moved?
ML- Absolutely. She had me fired from jobs with her fraternizing. No investigation, no questions, no nothing. All because I had the audacity to walk with my head high. Because I won't let them break me down. And mostly because I don't break others down. That's the biggest thing that makes me a problem inmate.
SI - You are a problem inmate because you wont break down other inmates?
ML- Absolutely. I carry myself in a way they should. I am professional. Being more professional than them makes me entitled or arrogant in their eyes. They basically want me to not talk, to be silent. I approach them respectfully and I get nothing but disrespect. They say I am problematic because I have concerns. I see problems and I voice issues. I cannot be heard except by a low-level pro-inmate cop.
SI - Do we have any pro inmate staff in Admin on Cruz?
ML- No. But we did.
SI - Swane?
ML- Yes, Swane and Mensa. But they crossed over. If I have an issue i am immediately cut off and dismissed. I can't be heard.
SI - Yes, Mensa switched up on me too. They want us silent, compliant. Those inmates who fraternize with staff to get power over the yard, how do they manipulate situations?
ML- The behave snake-ishky. They slither...they sneak...they get the cops to do their bidding through whispers and gossip and secrets and lying. They find people who don't care enough about truth to check their lies. They find people who believe them without question. People who will just make you a target for the snake. People who will just believe whispers of demons. The difference with me is I refuse to become them. I could have everything too if I would become like them. I refuse. And I will not be intimidated. Either you are going to like me or hate me. But in will never, NEVER be like them. That's what they call rehabilitation here, working for the cops to break others. Once you are disgusting like them, you are rehabilitated. If you refuse, they mess with everything. Your life, your healthcare, your job, school... I will not fraternize. I won't.
SI - You refuse to be like Officer Acles (inmate)?
ML- (laugh) Biggest snake ever. Queen Snake. So miserable with herself. So dark. The moment she sees your light she plots on how to kill it. To kill your light. To kill you sneakily. When the higher ups are near she pretends to be respectable, they give her whatever she wants. She's so miserable. She pretends to help others but the whole time she plots, she watches everybody, she tries to know everything. Gossip helps her whisper and lie. She's never tried to help anyone but herself. She smiles through that ugly mask. Her fake smile! Her "Look at me!" mask. Whatever the higher up around wants is the act she plays. She's evil. Shes lucky we ain't on the streets.
SI - Mm, I do love when people preach to the choir. Do you think the people who serve her evil know what she really is?
ML- Yes. I do.
SI - I can't believe that. I won't.
ML- I know. But I believe they know. All of them. And because she does things for them they'll give her everything she wasnts regardless of how many of us were hurt by her sick games. She is sad. She's a selfish, selfish lady. One truly selfish individual. She might pretend to help you but the whole time she is setting you up. Before you know it you'll be stabbed in the back.
SI - Everyone? You think no one at all is safe?
ML- Just inmates. No inmate is safe. She believes she is above us. She thinks she, and staff, are smarter than all of us. She is one of them in her mind, she is prison staff.
SI - Do you think it is possible to have inmates who care about other inmates come into power like that without becoming one of the Officer Acleses?
ML- Absolutely. Honestly, I think its all about kindness. Not fake kindness though. If someone treats someone kindly, genuinely, that's contagious. But people are afraid to love in here because of retaliation. Because genuine love invites abuse.
SI - If we worked continuously towards self reliance, towards autonomy, and did all we could together as a community, without involving staff, or engaging with staff unless we have to, could we make this place better until prison is a thing of the past?
ML- 100% yes. Because, in a sense, we'd get rid of all the dark clouds. There would be air to breathe without it being sucked up from you by thieves. Most of these people shouldn't be in the positions they are in. They are petty, childish, retaliatory creatures. They are horrible people. They are a danger to society. Especially the inmate officers, they are evil. We'd be better living without them.
SI - Close your interview Melissa, please.
ML- They have tried everything possible to break me. The staff listened to the whispers of Officer Acles and they tried to break me. They tried to kill me, to kill my spirit. They don't like strong women, they hate strong Black women. They want us to shut up, to slither and lie.
I want to thank them. They didn't break me. They didn't kill me. They didn't make me shut up. They helped me to look closer at myself. They made me stronger. They tempted me to sell my soul for power, for control, for comfort. I'd rather have them pick on me, mock me, hurt me and try to kill me for trying to help myself and other people, than to ever become like them. I don't even want to appear to be like them. Their sick games have made me stronger. Now we can work on undoing the damage they have done to so many people. I thank them.

INTERVIEW WITH LIL SISTER
Shajiyah interviewing Crystal “Arij Carimbocas” #298234 in C21-04 of Santa Cruz Unit, on her 41st Birthday 6/7/25 beginning 1:32 because PRISM meeting was postponed.
SI – Before we begin I want you to know that this interview will be public on unnatural-life.org and the pigs could see it.
CC – So. Let them see it.
SI – How life ng have you been in prison?
CC – Ive been in prison since 2015.
SI – When did you first go to jail?
CC – 2012.
SI – Is this your 1st time down?
CC – Yes.
SI – Do you have a Life Sentence?
CC – Yes.
SI – What was your first impression of jail?
CC – It was very depressing. Cold. Dreadful.
SI – What was your first impression of prison?
CC – I felt like it was ridiculous. When we got to the entrance…it was big…and kind of overwhelming. Staff were unorganized. Confused.
SI – Tell me how it was overwhelming?
CC – Because I didn’t know what to expect.
SI – So you did 4 years in jail before coming here. You had heard gossip, rumors and tales from people who had been to prison before? Did you think of those things when you got here?
CC – Yes I had heard of prison but I had never even been arrested before, I’d never been to jail, it was all nightmarish, surreal…but the things they told me were unbelievable to me. All they talked about was that they couldn’t wait to go back to prison.
SI – You didn’t believe them?
CC – I didn’t believe them because it didn’t make any since to me.
SI – You are in Joe Arpaio’s Maricopa County Jail, right?
CC – Yes.
SI – Does it make sense now why they were in a hurry to get here?
CC – Yes.
SI – Do you think County Jail is so dreadful as a tactic to coerce people to sign pleas just to get to prison?
CC – Yes
SI – Describe some major differences between County Jail and prison.
CC – Differences are, they have cigarettes here, TV…
SI – Did you smoke back then?
CC – No…Prison has long sleeve shirts and sweatshirts. Jail made us freeze with very little to cover with. Prison has contact visits jail only has video. Prison has jobs… even if they pay 10¢ – 45¢. We have bags of coffee we can buy here. Prison has lights you can turn off and on in the cells and we are not exposed to fluorescent lighting 24 hours a day light in county as a torture tactic. We can buy razors here to shave. And there are nail clippers here and real combs…county only had little- bitty combs.
SI – So you remember a lot of people signing pleas to escape the cold, bright, miserable conditions of county?
CC – Yes, they were happy to sign pleas to escape that as fast as they could even if they were innocent.
SI – So when you got here, you say the entrance was big and overwhelming. Were you scared?
CC – A little bit, because I had never been to prison before. I think I was more nervous than scared.
SI – And you went straight to the Hole in 2015?
CC – Yes, February 2015. You were there, Smilez was there, so was Happie, Nessa, Caballa (like a female horse in spanish “Cub-eye-ya”) Tiger…and Death Row’s Miles and Wendy.
SI – Was Lacey Scott the DW? What were your impressions of the Hole?
CC – Yes, Scott was the DW. Let me see, I got there at night…I try to forget about stuff like this…
SI – Is this going to give you bad dreams? I will ask somethings else…
CC – No, no it’s OK Ukhti…I had my jumpsuit on because I had no other clothes at all. I took it off to sleep and I got in trouble. I was so hot. They told me to put my jumpsuit back on. I wore it for 3 days until they gave me extra clothes.
SI – Did they give you pants?
CC -Yes, I got a new short sleeve a pnats, socks underwear and a bra, and a used set.
SI – Did any one tell you how long we had been able to have pants?
CC – Yes, Nessa told me that they just barely started letting us wear pants. That before I got there the women were only allowed to wear the jumpsuit.
SI – How were the staff?
CC – Ummm…they were normal to me when I first got there. I think I started noticing the staff more when I started working outside a month later. Some of them were loud, some of them, like Everhart, were just doing their jobs…but when things got crazy they got loud and mean with people. They would talk about inmates. I remember them talking about the watches, why they wanted to die, or why so and so was yelling. I remember them talking about you. I remember them talking abut you getting out of the Hole and one of the officers, Officer Fell said, “There not going to to let her out. They’ll never let her out. Ever. She’ll die back here.” I remember wondering why he would say that? I blocked out a lot from those days. It’s all a blur to me. But the staff sucked, and they were fucked up, they would traumatize people. Not Everhart or Fell, but Kramer and the others…they were terrible…they were overbearing and always yelling and treating us like we were animals. I blocked out so much…
SI – It’s ok. Do you think prison makes people better?
CC – Hell no it doesn’t. It makes us…it puts our minds into constant survival mode. This doesn’t make us better. There is no rehabilitation.
SI – What is rehabilitation?
CC – I read that rehabilitate means to restore to normal life but prison destroys us. It destroys everything in us. It destroys our worth, our ability to function. It destroys our relationships with our families and our friends and our children. And they make it hard to have friends in here because so many people turn into rats and they work with the pigs to help them destroy us.
SI – Have you seen a change in how staff treat us in the last 10 years?
CC – No. Because if you think about it it is actually worse now. I think it is. I don’t know how to explain it.
SI – Try LilSis…
CC – I don’t know, the Hole is a different world from here.
SI – It is a different world. Do you think prison is fashioned to destroy us with the deliberate intention of making it impossible to stay free when released?
CC – Yes, absolutely. Our range of motion is so little, with everything, even down to our rooms. They program us for it to be impossible to adjust. They need us to be institutionalized so we come back.
SI -Tell me how they program us?
CC- With everything, times of feeding, count, all that affect us. We have to be in compliance and the constant stupid nagging about tuck your shirt in and stupid things. And the classes…all those group classes are all a lie. They help people come back with the things they teach that only focus on the negative in ourselves. They don’t want us to look at the positive things in ourselves. They make us feel like a stain on society.
SI – Have you ever been in a class that made you feel like you were a valuable person?
CC – Yes, Electrical. And Dr Gomez, Dr Pasha, and Pr Grahams classes. Dr Manninen made me feel normal. So did Dr Suhail and the Yerba Matte lady. And the gorgeous Black Professors.
SI – As a Lifer, do you think ADCRR staff should treat Lifers differently than NonLifers?
CC – Yes. Because some of us are going to die here. Yes they should treat us differently. They should let us work where we want, even jobs like Televerde and MVD. I wouldn’t want that, but some other Lifers might. If we don’t want to work we should be allowed not to. Lifers should be allowed to do college like everyone else too. They should remove the Priority Ranking policy that makes Lifers ineligible for things.
SI – If they removed the Priority Ranking do you think most Lifers would want those things?
CC – No, I don’t think most would want to…but we should all have the choice.
SI – What do you think prevents women from fighting against injustices in prison?
CC – They don’t have the knowledge…they don’t know what is really going on. They don’t know mass incarceration is slavery. They don’t know because those who have known for a long time hid that knowledge from us.
SI – Why would people hide that knowledge from the population?
CC – The people, the prisoners who had this knowledge are selfish and only care about themselves.
SI – How could them holding the knowledge benefit them in their selfishness?
CC – They think that it made them smarter to hide it from us. If they were truly smart they would share it with other people. They were scared someone would do something with the knowledge. They talk, but they do nothing. They are jealous of people who actually do things because they are cowards.
SI – Do you have any fear in speaking about what is happening inside this prison or about anyone in particular?
CC – Hell no. If we don’t speak, they do stuff to us, if we do speak they do stuff to us. What’s the difference?
SI – What is the most traumatic thing you’ve seen happen in Perryville?
CC – I had to search my mind right now…I bury those things. Sherry Tobyne’s death was pretty traumatic. Remember Sis? We stood at the door and you were talking about her body down there, on the cold concrete, hour after hour. It was Sergeant Cooper and Officer Fink and Officer Cook. They had covered Sherry’s body. Pigs don’t usually cover dead bodies. They usually leave the breasts exposed from CRP. You were talking about…wondering about… whether they will cover your corpse when you are laid out on the concrete when you die. They covered her body and even made a curtain type thing around her body. It was strange that they respected the corpse. It was abnormal. It was moving.
SI – I remember. I wonder often how they’ll treat my corpse. The way Tobyne was treated was very different from Markel flirting with that guy over the cold corpse of Hennesy last January. Or her mocking Theresa Brown’s death. Why do you think it is so uncommon for pigs to show that type of common courtesy, or basic decency?
CC – Because they treat us like we are not humans. They look at us like we are some kind of filth. Like we are nothing.
SI – Do you think the inmate-officers who seek power from pigs see us as less than human too?
CC – Yes, they’re minds are linked with the pigs. They see us as less than them. As if they are above us. They want that power. They seek power and control. In reality, they feel like they are worthless. And they are. That’s why they kept the knowledge from us they were given so long ago. Because they know we aren’t worthless. They knew we would use it to help others.
SI – What do you think we can we do to help other prisoners, and other abolitionists, besides this?
CC – We can try to get to know everyone we live around, so we can help each other and be more aware of what they are going through. And maybe we can guide them in knowledge and in education. And we can encourage them to educate themselves.
SI – Educate themselves in what exactly?
CC – In how the prison system really works. That will help them to keep going on the right path, to not support the prison system. To be aware of traps and harmful programs and not come back.
SI – If you could have one item in your cell, or for your use in prison, what would it be?
CC – I would want an iPhone.
SI – Could we look at out site on it?
CC – Yes.
SI – When you get out, which you will inshaaAllah, what do you plan to do to help end slavery?
CC – You already know what I am going to do. I am going to help you. I am going to get connected to others doing the same work with Anisa. And help people say free. I am going to help youngsters never go to prison. Theres so much I want to do. This is the best way I can imagine to serve Allah.
SI – Allahu Akbar.
CC -Allahu Akbar.

HTMD Interview with Joycie 6/14/24
Shajiyah interviewing Mama Joyce from June of 2024. The smoking section had been temporarily closed and all smoking had to be moved to the Main Yard Rec Cage because the cops feared someone would burn down the Army tents they placed on each Yard. Mama Joyce and I sat at a table in the C Yard smoking section on Santa Cruz for this interview since it was empty. Mama Joyce is a wonderful woman who moves slowly and deliberately, and speaks the same way, with a slight southern accent. Mamma Joyce is the most respected of all the elders on Santa Cruz Unit.
SI- Mama Joyce, we'll start with the regular questions that everyone can answer before we get to some things most of us have no knowledge of. What is your political affiliation and your religion?
MJ- I don't know what my political affiliation is right now, with the two options we have (Joe Biden and Donald Trump) I just don't know. If I had to vote I just wouldn't. And I've been Catholic all my life.
SI- What is you sexual preference?
MJ- I'm a straight female. I've never been with a woman in here is out there, I'm strictly dickly.
SI- What is your race and where do your people come from?
MJ- Heinz 57. I wanted to do a family tree but never did. My mom's side is from Ireland but my dad is darker.
SI- Mama Joyce, how many years have you been in prison?
MJ- 36 years, I'm an interstate compact from Delaware, I got here to Perryville in 1991.
SI- Do you have an out date?
MJ- I'm a Lifer.
SI- Natural Life?
MJ- Yes.
SI- Did you appeal?
MJ- Yes, when I was first sentenced. I had a 5 week long trial and the jury took 3 weeks to deliberate.
SI- Did you think you'd be found guilty?
MJ- No. I claimed innocence, I still do. My co-defendant, husband at the time, told me I had to testify or he'd do something to my family, and I knew he had the power to do it. The jury didn't want to give me guilty on an F1 (1st Degree Murder/ Felony 1) they only wanted to give me Accomplice. I knew I was going down when the judge told the jury they could only go for the F1.
SI- Mama Joyce, you've been in prison 36 years, the public thinks prisons treat inmates better than they used to, we know that is not true. In what ways have you seen the prison decline most in the last three decades?
MJ- Back in the day DOC ran everything, the Store, the food, everything belonged to DOC. There weren't outside contracts for everything. Staff were not as disrespectful as they are now, if you had something you needed to take care of, you could just go to them and they treated inmates like people. Cell changes were allowed when people couldn't live together so there was less violence. We had keys to our own cells. There were no blanket punishments.
SI- What initiated the negative downfall?
MJ- We had a DW from Illinois that was really good. After that we got Director Chuck Ryan in 2001, that's when things got really, really bad.
They took all our stuff away.
SI- What stuff did they take away?
MJ- Chuck Ryan made it so everything had to be clear (see through plastic appliances/electronics). Before Chuck families could send TVs, and they could send three 25 pound food boxes. We had Coleman ice chests, crock pots and curling irons. Chuck Ryan took away everything.
SI- What was Medical like back then?
MJ- You could put in an HNR (Health Needs Request form) and be seen by a Doctor, Dental or whatever you needed all in one building on Santa Maria (Unit).
SI- What do you think contributes to the ways staff treat us now that differs from 36 years ago?
MJ- These staff, it's all about power with them. Disrespectful cops train new cops to be the same way. Sometimes when you're used to them being one way, they flip, that's what's sad.
SI- At what point did the cops start becoming so disrespectful?
MJ- Under Chuck Ryan. He was bad, the DWs got worse, and then the cops got worse too.
SI- Do you think our staff treat us bad because of Central Office? Do you think discontent trickles down?
MJ- I was here, then on Lumley, then back here (Cruz) and I know it's gotten worse over here. It feels like we're living in a dictatorship.
SI- Even with Swane?

MJ- Yes, because we don't see her enough. When I got over here I had to fight for everything. We shouldn't have to fight so much for every little thing. Even when they say to go through the chain of command, no one wants to be bothered. I even had to fight to get my wheelchair.
SI- What else is different?
MJ- There wasn't as many fights as there are now, there's always fights now, every time you look around. The disrespect is all the way around.
SI- What jobs did they have here that are different from what we have available now?
MJ- I had a Data Entry job, and back then you could have 2 jobs if you wanted to. Everything with jobs has changed so much.
SI- What's different from the food?
MJ- Back then you could go into the kitchen and order sunny side up eggs, or whatever kind of eggs you wanted, and the girls would cook them. There was real toast and biscuits. There was rotisserie meats and breads.
SI- How did that work with the chow schedules?
MJ- Back then every yard had a kitchen and we could just go in. It wasn't like now with one kitchen for the whole Unit.
SI- Do you think our prison is ran strictly as a money making machine?
MJ- Yes, take a look at this (pointing to the Army tent they set up as a cooling station). The ACs won't be up and working until probably November. And what do you think is going to go on in there (referencing the tent again)?
SI- Do you think that inmates can make changes to how we are treated and how the prison is ran? If yes, what would it take for that to happen?
MJ- Yes, I think we could make a difference. I think...back to staff again... they would have to be not so happy to give tickets. Ticket this, ticket that, all day. The cops are way too ticket happy, they have terir rules and regs, but they don't take into consideration what it's like. Give them a week locked in cell. The inmates could run this place better. Staff have no consistency.
SI- After 36 years in the inmate population, what do you think it would take for inmates to stick together?
MJ- It's never going to happen. Years ago when the cops were going to stop room visiting, back when we were allowed to go into each others cells and watch TV or eat or whatever with other people, they stopped that. The girls all decided to do a walk, like a march for their rights, only 5 showed up out of the hundred that had said, "We'll do it! We'll do it!" The DW came down and accused the 5 of us that stayed with it of "attempting to start a riot" and we went to the Hole.
SI- Why do you think no one showed up?
MJ- They were afraid their make-up would get taken away. They were afraid the cops were going to come in and tear the place up.
SI- Have you ever seen a change made by inmates standing together in 36 years?
MJ- One time. Our electric and water were turned off. We needed water and we wanted bottled water. Everybody refused to lock down. Everybody.
SI- How long did it take the cops to comply with your demand?
MJ- One hour. We stood strong, all of us. I'm the type if I believe in something I'm going to stand strong on it.
SI- What do you think it would take to get the population to care more about change than comfort?
MJ- A lot of women are trying out to go do that same things they did that brought them here, I've heard them. These girls have never gotten love in their lives, they done know what love is. They need to be talked to, to be shown that someone cares. They have such resentment, it's sad. I grew up when people stood up for things, people stood up for what they believe in. These girls need love.
SI- You say that the girls need love? Do you think we, the elders and the Lifers, should implement some type of Adopt A Brat program?
MJ- We used to have a program where the kids came in that Scared Straight Program for us to talk to them, to tell them what it's really like. When it started working, they stopped the program.
SI- What about inside, if we tried once they come inside as convicts?
MJ- Yes, I do it already, I try to take in some new ones, to show them love, but some people tell me to stop. Sometimes the girls just need someone to listen to them.
SI- Why would anyone want you to stop that?
MJ- They don't like that it takes away from them. A lot of people are selfish. I'm going to keep doing what I do and keep on caring for others.
SI- What is the primary objective of your life?
MJ- Well, I've lost my mother, my father, my sister, and my daughter. I've got grand children and great grand children that I've never seen. I want to see them.
SI- Do you have a way to try to make that happen?
MJ- I've talked to my granddaughter...it takes so long to get anything done here. You didn't used to have to have to put in applications, people just came in to see you. You could just call people.
SI- What else do you want to do with your life Mama Joyce?
MJ- I like to learn new things. I've had 2 strokes. They said I'd never walk again. I couldn't use my left side at all, my brain is damaged. If we got interrupted I'd have to ask you what I was talking about.
SI- I've recently seen the smartest people I've ever met in my life do that Joycie, I think you're just fine.
MJ- I'm the type of person that I love everybody, I don't care what you've done or what religion you are. I love people for who they are. That's what I want to do with my life, love people.

TOMMY INTERVIEW
Shajiyah Iman interviewing Tamanika White #274714 on Santa Cruz Unit C21-09 June 10th 2025 at 0800.
SI – OK Sis, this interview will be public on unnatural-life.org. It will be open for the whole world, including the pigs, to see. Is that OK?
TW – Get that shit then.
SI – Will do. Tell me about your time.
TW – Got 20. Been down 14.
SI – First time down, right?
TW – Yes.
SI – That’s shocking.
TW – Shut the fuck up. Out there I did all my own dirt so I never got caught. Because everybody thinking they know everything.
SI – What did you think about this place when you got here?
TW – That it wasn’t as bad as they made it seem. Except the thieves and snitches.
SI – You mean inmate thieves?
TW – Yes.
SI – Thieves of peace or possessions? Because I know nobody steals possessions from you.
TW – Thieves of peace we can avoid by not going up front. We can avoid them anywhere. Mostly. I mean thieves of possessions. All they have to do is ask. If the answer is no, they need to accept that.
SI – Sis, who has ever stolen from you?
TW – Roommates.
SI – Ohhhh, the Nutela incident. I was made to forget!
TW – There have been others who steal little things. And then once we lost a CD and a CD player.
SI – What about staff? Have they gotten better or worse in your 14?
TW – Worse. Much worse. We get these guys who come in and get crazy. Their authority goes to their heads and they come at you crazy like you have to respect them. But then they want to get scared and call their supervisor when you flash on them. Respect is something that is earned and these can’t ever earn it.
SI – Do you think it is possible for pigs to respect us without pretending?
TW – I’ve come across some. Very few, but some. They actually care about us as humans. They don’t only see orange. But very few.
SI – What makes those few so different?
TW – How they talk to us. How they deal with us.
SI – We were talking about classes earlier. Do the Professors talk to us different?
TW – Most of them.
SI – What do you think we need to learn to help people not come back to prison?
TW – It’s not the bs the prison offers. NA is a joke. AA is a joke.
SI – Do you think Lifers could have classes that help people not come back?
TW – If they would allow it.
SI – Why do we need pigs to allow everything? You don’t think we could do it on the Yard without them?
TW – The new kids have no respect. No respect for us, their elders, and no respect for themselves. They just have no respect. They aren’t taking any classes unless they are made to.
SI – So you think Lifers should propose teaching the youngsters to Admin?
TW – Yes. Just like they are supposed to have orientation but they don’t. Classes with Lifers would teach them how to act, how to do time without a bunch of bullshit.
SI – The only Lifers who would work for Admin like that are…
TW – …rats, pets…yeah. Counterproductive…yeah. And they’ll run evertything back…
SI – Do you think the youngsters lack self esteem or just self respect?
TW – These little motherfuckers lack manners. They don’t respect anybody or themselves. The only way we can help them is if they want better, if they want to do better. If they want to change.
SI – Do you think they seek what they need to stay free?
TW – 95% don’t care if they stay free or not. Their minds are stuck on dumb shit. They don’t think free is a real option.
SI – If we developed our own disciplinary system for the kids on the Yards do you think we would end up reproducing the same evils as State discipline?
TW – No. We couldn’t. Because we care. We love them. We would be trying to give them what it takes to make it out there. The State wants them to come back. Pigs don’t give a shit.
SI – Youre not a Lifer, you barely missed the mark…
TW – Shut up…
SI – But your friends are Lifers. Do you think we should be treated differently by staff?
TW – Honestly, yes. 99% of you guys don’t do dumb shit. You guys shouldnt receive blanket punishments because some dumb 20 year old with a 5 year sentence acts an ass. And you guys shouldn’t be excluded from education if you want it. You guys shouldn’t be excluded from jobs either.
SI – Yesterday we were talking and you had a really good idea regarding finding unity among convicts.
TW – Yes, that Zapatista shit we learned, how they make decisions as a community without all that secret shit and without no dictator.
SI – Some degree of secrecy is necessary. You know what we did last summer.
TW – Shut up. You know what I mean. When it comes to how we deal with this problem or that problem, we could do it as a convict community. If there is a problem drawing heat, any real problem, we should all talk about it. Not all that punk ass fearful whispering behind peoples’ backs. That ain’t real. That’s not how to do shit. But the ones claiming shit need to whisper to run it back to the cops and do all that, quiet, “This is whats going on” shit.
SI – That’s hilarious but not funny.
TW – They do it because they feel they have to let the cops know for our own good, to prevent people from taking matters into their own hands.
SI – How could we begin to stop that?
TW – First women have to learn to stick together.
SI – With the rats?
TW – No, Shajiyah, no. We exclude the rats.
SI – Did the Zapatistas?
TW – Are there Zapatista rats?
SI – I have no idea. Not for long probably.
TW – We have to find out who they are.
SI – Don’t we know who they are.
TW – Not all of them. The old ones we know. But there are new ones.
SI – We can’t possibly have time for that.
TW – You might not.
SI – You might not either.
TW – But for something like to work we have to take the time.
SI – But new ones would form, it’s a plague. Even if we found them all we couldn’t prevent the plague from redeveloping. Do you think if we placed the kids with little or no self esteem in the fore of meetings, if there ever were meetings, it would give them self esteem, self respect? Do you think elevating their opinions in the presence of their elders might make them want to change?
TW – Yes, for sure. Yes, that would work. They’d feel empowered, respected, important, valuable. It could keep them off the rats pay roll.
SI – There’s a rat pay roll!!

TW – I don’t know. Stay calm. But the people doing the thing are on the pay roll up there. That’s all I meant.
SI – Do you think the higher education offered here is not as attended as it could be due to administrative inmates?
TW – Yes, Admin probably keeps them there to hurt attendance on purpose.
SI – Do you think the knowledge from those classes can lower recidivism?
TW – No. Because that kind of knowledge has nothing to do with our lives when we get out. That education isn’t going to stop someone from being an addict. They’ll stop when they are ready. If they robbed somebody and you tell them to write a poem, when they get out and they ain’t got no money they’re going to rob somebody, not write a poem.
SI – Writing the poem could help them process why they robbed the person. Maybe it could help them reflect later?
TW – If you rob somebody because you ain’t got a fucking job a poem isn’t going to get them a job, give them money.
SI – Do you think expressing ourselves to others about prison to those who don’t really know what it is could be beneficial? Do you think showing the world we are people is necessary?
TW – If that’s the case he could share what he’s been through. He don’t. Why?
SI – You don’t think our voices matter?
TW – To who?
SI – To the world?
TW – Do the Palestinians voices matter? BLM didn’t change shit. Pigs are still killing negroes every day. Black pigs are killing Black men. 8 Black pigs went down for killing one Black man. Did his voice matter?
SI – The last form of slavery took all kinds of efforts to kick it back into this form. Do you think this new form of slavery can end?
TW – Do I think there can be no prisons? No. Because there is always going to be somebody doing something someone says is wrong.
SI – That’s true. But do you think people will always be so shallow as to think caging humans is right?
TW – Unfortunately, yes, because racism will always exist in America. Racism is what America is. It’s mostly America and that’s what’s so crazy. Cuba has Cubans as black as negroes but they all treat each other as Cubans, from the lightest to the darkest. It’s different here. Prison doesn’t change first, the people out there have to change first. I wish we could get up tomorrow and racism would be over.
SI – Do you have any ideas on how to end racism?
TW – It would require people to think differently, to believe differently.
SI – Back to writing, do you think making people aware of struggle can help people change their thoughts and beliefs?
TW – Empathetic people maybe.
SI – Should we try then?
TW – The only way to find out what works is to try.
SI – What is one thing you would like, if you could have anything?
TW – The key. That key that gets us out. Yes, you too. You can’t tell me no.
SI – Does everybody leave?
TW – No.
SI – Then I stay. Not one thing like that, one thing in your cell, with you in it.
TW – An iPhone.
SI – That’s what lilsis said!
TW – Tablet is an expensive pay phone. Trash can is a washing machine. I want an iPhone. A real phone.
SI – Close your interview Sister…
TW – To help end racism we have to make people understand that we all bleed red blood. From the whitest grand dragon to the blackest slave.

SUMMY INTERVIEW 
This is Shajiyah Iman interviewing Christina Esqueri Cornell better known as Summy #177155 in the crowded Santa Cruz B Yard smoking section on June 20th 2025 at 0930.
SI - Summy, this interview will be public on unnatural-life.org and anybody in the world will be able to see it, including the pigs. Is that OK?
S - Yes. That's OK Angel.
SI - How old are you Summy and how long have you been down?
S - I'm 68 and I've been down 22 years this time.
SI - When do you get out?
S - In 3 years. Angel, will they make me go that house? That half way house for Lifers?
SI - I don't know Summy...
S - We have a plan, me and V (I am changing this to V for reasons. Summy says it's OK to do every time she says it). Me and V made plans so they can't put me in that house. Where V goes, that's where I want to go. We heard they make us Lifers go to that place. We made a plan many years ago. She remembers the plan.
SI - I have no doubt of that Summy, she remembers. One day I will be able to do these interviews and not cry.
S - No you won't.
SI - Thank you. Is this your first time down?
S - No, i have done 35 years in prison. I did time on D Yard D/C in Colorado. They gave me 27 years for 16 kilos. I appealed and got it knocked down to 10. Colorado gives us 50%. One day I was walking from the bubble to the 3rd tier and Rosa Medina, she was my roommate, she ... I was on the 3rd tier... I was getting ready to ship out to Canyon City. Well, Angel, you know I don't care who is gay and all that, but I don't like it when they put that on me. She tried to undress me and I pushed her over the tier.
SI - Summy, she tried to undress you right on the tier?!
S - Yes! With her eyes! (Much laughter in the smoking section)
SI - Did she die?
S - No, she was just paralyzed.
SI - It happens. (More laughter)
S - Yep, it happens.
SI - No way out of that ticket. Outside off the tier...
S - No. I got 5 years and 2 in the Hole.
SI - No shipping out to Canyon City?
S - No (laughing), I really didn't mean to push her that hard. It was just like "Woops!" And I looked down and she was all mangled up. (laughter)
SI - I completely understand. (Laughter) So you are at 22 of a 25...
S - Well, I got 25 for 2nd Degree Murder and 5 for a stolen check and he ran them consecutive.
SI - I'm sorry Summy. I hate all this so much. In your 22 years here, what has changed the most?
S - I hate it too. I think the ways they operate have changed the most. They as consistently inconsistent. One says this, another comes along and says that. Like our windows for example. They let us cover our windows and then a sergeant or a corporal comes along and says we can't cover our windows. They are the back windows! The Peeping Toms can see us all just fine from the front windows with their little flashlights! Why can't we cover the back windows? They'd use less air! The sun is hot. The can't fly up and see us!
SI - Not yet. Why do you think they are so inconsistent?
S - They do it to drive us crazy. They constantly change things up to drive us crazy.
SI - What is the biggest security threat we have?
S - Cops.
SI - Solid answer Summy. What else?
S - Well, we can't pop our door from the inside and it's real dangerous. Some pods do, some don't. Sometimes there are emergencies and we kick the doors and scream and no one listens and we can't get help. Like that one the died over on Lumley...
SI - Marjie?
S - (Laughs) Not yet...
SI - Shame...
S - Yeah. But that other one, the other like that who they would put in the jobs to tell on people. The one that they put in the kitchen and State Issue as an informant...
SI - That's Jew Marjie (smoking sections adamantly agrees)
S - The other one! The other white informant! Deb...Tolbert... she died with us all still over there...
Amber - Debra?
SI - Linda? Cindy?
Amber - The one that told on you Angel. That they laid on the concrete for 7 hours? Sherry?
SI - Tobyne.
S - Yes, Sherry Tobyne.
SI - Yes she was my next door neighbor when she died. Tragic. What about that Summy?
S - If we had been able to pop our doors she might not have died. And why'd they put her body in a black bag and then switch it to an orange bag?
SI - We have our own orange convict bags?
S - I guess so... You didnt see them switch the bags?
SI - No. I never watch after the bagging. I did notice the first bag was black though. On the street I only saw bodies bagged in blue. That strange blue that seemed to make sense.
S - They bagged Sherry, took her body out, they re-bagged Sherry and then they arrested her bunkie. That white girl...what was her name...?
SI - Rachel. I lived with her too, she's here on one of those stupid Felony Murder cases, she wasn't even in the house when the guy got killed. So sad. What do you think we could do to make this place better Summy?
S - We could plant gardens. (We all look over to where CO IV Denarric D Keaton and his 3 closest convicts Jer, Bernie and Crissie are scratching around in their little pigpen with a few ragged plants they grow themselves as an affront to the whole community by stealing a Muslim proposal and claiming the Christians proposed it. I personally doubt Jer is a pet for the record. Jer is still a convict).
SI - Well, we see clearly the pigs allow some people to garden. Doesn't that count?
S - No! The doesn't count! The ain't right! (lots of boisterous protesting of pigs and their pets and the privileges of those who worship and serve the pigs). It's fucked up to not let us all work with plants!! Look out there! (Summy points to the fields around us). Look at all the land! We could till that land and plant rows and rows of corn an vegetables and it would help with the budget for food. Look at all that land! Angel, remember the Salad Bar?
SI - No Summy. I was getting tazered in Arpaio's hell from '09-'12 but Blossom told me stories years before I got here about how it was.
S - It would create more jobs and help so many people! They'd get an education and it would help us come together!
SI - And we could live off the land and teach the kids how to live off the grid and we could...
Cover girl - Oh shit, there she goes!
SI - OK, Ok, do you think the pigs having a select few allowed to work with plants causes discord?
S - Yes, it makes them great big targets. Nobody likes them anyway, but its still not good.
Miranda - It doesn't cultivate corn or unity, it cultivates animosity.
SI - Summy, in the 22 years you have been here how do you think you have changed the most?
S - My whole person...
SI - I don't know what that means...
S - I used to ... My father never scolded me. When I got here people thought I was the boss.
SI - Maybe you are the boss?
S - No. I just want to go home. I just want to get out of here and go whoever V is. I have lost so much. I am 69 years old. I've been in prisons 35 years of my life. I've lost a lot. My son in Ausust...I came here to Arizona because my youngest son was murdered. I lost my middle boy to cancer. I just want to live. I want to be alive. I want to get out of these gates, Angel. My best friend in the whole world was my dad. He died when I was in Colorado. I couldn't breathe. I had to go back to the Hole. Something was really wrong with me.
SI - Did you get to talk to him before he died?
S - Well, he had brain cancer and he went back in his mind to when he was a kid. One time he remembered me and he said, "You can blame me for everything." I joined Prison Fellowship because I don't know what to do. I don't know how to make it without my boys. We always camped together, we did everything together. Without my dad.... But I have V. 2 weeks 2 days. 2 weeks 2 days. She's never going to get in trouble again. V is my best friend.
SI - Does she remind you of your dad?
S - She understood when I would call out...when I would say I needed him. I see my dad in the sky, a red tailed hawk. He always comes when I need him.
SI - What's the first thing you want to do when you get out Summy?
S - I want to eat. I want eggs, hashbrowns, Texas toast, yeah Texas toast and... What do you call those square things you put in the...oh French toast! I want to go eat breakfast with V and Tric Arnold. When Tric came through RandA she was asking for V. Tric is doing real good and wants to be part of my life. I want 25 balloons. 25 balloons so all these motherfuckers know. Jewels McClosky...she will be going home soon.
SI - Yes, she is close. What is the most important thing you want to accomplish?
S - I want to make amends with my daughter. She hasn't spoke to me this whole time I've been down. I thought she would when after my second son died.
SI - If you could have anything in your cell what would it be?
S - A puppy.
SI - What would his name be and what kind of puppy would he be?
S - He'd be a half breed and his name would be HalfBreed. I had a HalfBreed before. He was so perfect. Half Australian Shepherd and half ... something... I used to speak German. My dad was full blooded German. My mom was Native from the LA Paz area. My dad, bro and Jon-Jon are all buried together. My brother is the only one in a casket.
SI - We don't do the casket either. What do you want? Ground or box?
S - Ground! They better put me in the ground! My dad knew. He was on the wrong sided in Austin. I found out I was pregnant at 14. I said, "I need to go home." My dad didn't want anyone at his funeral but me and JimBob. But his mom called everybody! Before you knew it everyone was there. Texas has real strange laws, weird laws. In Travis County you can't go in the hospital unless you live there. As soon as my dad heard his mom's voice he tried to rip all the chords out. He didn't want her there. I went to a family gathering in California so my daughter could meet her dad. They said I was a big disappointment for having a kid and not being married. I didnt want to be a disappointment so I married him. He ended up beating the fuck out of me.
SI - Summy your life has been really hard. You've been though so much. You were young in Colorado. Do you think your path to prison started when you were young.
S - Yes, they should never sentence people to prison when they are young.
SI - If you could change one thing about prison, what would it be?
S - I would let all the Lifers out. We are the only ones who would truly never come back. 25 to Life, or Natural Life goes home. This is not OK. They can't take care of us like they are supposed to. We got old, Angel. What can we do?
SI - What's one thing you'd like to say before we close Summy?

SAM LINDSTROM EXIT INTERVIEW

Shajiyah Iman interviewing Samantha Lindstrom #302127, a fairly new but dedicated and inspiring member of u-l, on her way out to the streets on the morning of July 7 2025 between 0530- 0730 from the Santa Cruz C Yard smoking section to the V-Gate.
SI – We’re going to do this exit interview and it will be up on our site as soon as I type it up, then get it to my daughter and she posts it, OK?
SL- OK. I’ll look it up as soon as I get a phone. I don’t know where I’ll get a phone yet though.
SI – How do you feel?
SL – Happy and nervous, not sure of the unknown. DOC takes me to parole and then parole takes me to Therapeutic.
SI – What is Therapeutic?
SL – A program. A sober living program. My drug was methamphetamine.
SI – Is drugs why you came back?
SL – No. I came back for a text message. I wasn’t supposed to talk to my baby daddy and my roommate told on me. She sent screen shots to my PO. We got violated.
SI – What is your time?
SL – I got 5 months on this violation and I did 8 before on the burglary.
SI – Do you get to see your kids right away?
SL – No. Last time it took about three months. This time it might take a couple of weeks.
SI – Can you talk to their dad?
SL – No. He got 2.5 on the violation.
SI – What are your goals?
SL – Stay sober, finish the program and enroll with the tribe to get housing.
SI – Which tribe?
SL – Quanize. Colorado River Tribe. Fort Yuma. I will live on the Rez.
SI – Do you have a lot of support there?
SL – Yes. The judge had asked if they wanted to sever my rights to my kids and the tribe rejected it.
SI – Do you think you’ll find other abolitionist groups out there?
SL – I am interested but I am going to be cautious. I want to make sure they are for real. I want to make sure their intentions are true. Like when I came to your group. I had to make sure it was for real, that your intentions were valid. Some groups act like they are for the people but they aren’t, they are doing stuff only for themselves. They only take care of their needs. You guys are valid. You work for the greater good. It’s not about just you guys. Uou don’t do stuff for yourself.
SI – Do you intend to let us know how you are doing?
SL – Yes, but I have to get a phone.
SI – Jessica here wants to know what your 5 year plan is?
SL – I don’t want to stay in Arizona. I don’t think it’s beneficial to me. I want to go exploring with my family and see where we want to live. But I need to work for a couple of years to get stable so we can do that. But I think it I hard to travel as a felon.
SI – What else do you want to do?
SL – I want to come back in the prison and help women. I think I could be very helpful. We need to be more unified. We are not as unified because we are more emotional than men.
SI – Our group is unified and we are emotional. We even cry together.
SL – Yes, but we know what we are doing. Our group is headstrong, all of us are headstrong. We are straightforward and honest with each other. We are emotional but we know how to shut it off when we need to. A lot of these women are too busy thinking about getting high or what does she think about me or what should they tell on to get out of trouble. They aren’t like us. They don’t ever think of the greater good. They are selfish.
(A cop started yelling “Lindstrom!” We hugged her and she left through the gates.)

INTERVIEW WITH WETA

This is Shajiyah Iman interviewing Shaynna “Weta” Rohde in C32-09 on Santa Cruz Unit, July 2 2025 at 1330 hours.
SI – This is Shajiyah Iman interviewing Shaynna “Weta” Rohde in C32-09 on Santa Cruz Unit June 30 2025 at 1340.
SI – Weta, this interview will be public on unnatural-life.org and anybody in the world will be able to see it, including the pigs. Is that OK?
W – Yeah, that’s good.
SI – When was your first time down?
W – 2006 for 13 years.
SI – Then…?
W – Out for 4 then in Feds a year, ’19-’20, and then back here on 2.5. I’m done with 9 months of it.
SI – Are you sick?
W – Yeah, I have ovarian cancer. I was diagnosed three months ago. I had the two cancers before this, breast and cervical. They are not taking care of me except when I do a lot of threatening.
SI – What do you need?
W – Surgery. But my surgery has been cancelled 3 times. They tell me the surgeon is too busy.
SI – Has anyone you know talked to the surgeon, or is this what DOC says?
W – DOC. I have nobody to call the surgeon.
SI – Do you believe the surgeon is too busy to do surgery?
W – No.
SI – Do you think they are trying to kill you?
W – Yes.
SI – Have you contacted ACLU?
W – Yeah. They got Simms and Shulky (Nurses) removed from here for making me go septic but they won’t call the surgeon.
SI – What about your leg? (Weta’s leg has been swollen so bad for so long it is amazing she can walk.)
W – My leg is a separate issue from the cancers. There’s nothing they can do for my leg. AHCCCS won’t cover this. They just wrap it up. It hurts so bad all day everyday. It fucking hurts every second.
SI – What’s the circumference of your calve?
W – 44 inches. And they give me nothing for pain management. They do nothing for pain management except offer me methadone. They want to get us all on opiates. I’ve never used opiates in my life and to start an opiate addiction in prison is just crazy. It’s crazy the biggest drug dealer in prison is the prison. They make all the heroin money. No weed though? This shit is insane.
SI – Where is your Dr?
W – Ironwood.
SI – Ironwood Cancer Clinic?
W – Yes. No one will call my surgeon and see what’s going on. How can she be too busy to do surgery? The prison is lying.
SI – What surgery are you supposed to get?
W – Scoloscy. They go in and burn it all up inside to stop the cancer. When it is stopped they go in and take it out. I need a hysterectomy but they can’t do it because the 9 tumors will spread if they touch them. They have to do the burn first.
SI – If they are trying to kill you by denying your surgery how long will that take?
W – It took three years for my friend to die. I could still make it out of here alive… maybe.
SI – How do you remain so upbeat around the yard?
W – I believe in God and I know He has a plan. Somebody must need me somewhere. That’s why I am still alive.
SI – What are your plans if you make it out?
W – I want to work with the girls who are helping prisoners. I want to get with them and help women. Not to help the non-dangerous women, I only want to help the dangerous women. You guys are the best people and everybody only wants to help the non-dangerous women who don’t care bout anyone. I only want to help dangerous convicts.
(“Dangerous” and “Non-Dangerous” are tags the prison system places on crimes. The tags sometimes make since and sometimes they don’t. Drug crimes are usually non-dangerous. However Jen got Life for a drug case they tagged dangerous. It doesn’t mean “dangerous” women are walking around shanking people or that “non-dangerous” won’t shank someone. Typically “dangerous” women love Weta.)
SI – What do you think should change for dangerous women?
W – We should be allowed to get to the free world without having to pretend to conform to someone else’s bullshit standards. We shouldn’t have to take their bullshit programs to get time off our sentences. They don’t know what they are doing and they don’t give a fuck. We should be allowed to take the program out there if we have to take it.
SI – I know you keep in touch when you leave, but how do you feel leaving your people inside?
W – I get sad. Incredibly sad. These people are my people, my family. I know when I die you guys will care. The only people who will care when I die are in here. My real family, you guys will mourn for me. I haven’t been freed to build bonds out there. My bonds are in here. When I get released I feel like I am leaving my home, and the free world is my prison, because I leave so many inside.
SI – Do you think you’ll stay out this time?
W – No. Because my family is here. As much as I’d like to lie to myself and say “I’m going to make it” I know I won’t.
SI – What types of things could you do out there to help us more from there?
W – Advocate. Ban together with others who care. Get with others who are helping you guys. Fight to get rid of so much shit that ain’t right before I come back.
SI – What’s the worst thing about prison?
W – Suboxone. Why the fuck they thought they thought that was a good idea I have no idea. They made almost the whole population into fucking junkies. It is beyond me why they would addict sober prisoners to opiates pretending like they were already on it. That’s a fucking lie. They are addicting people who never did heroin or fentynyl in their lives. This is some sick shit. They know adding new addictions makes shit worse.
SI – Since 2006, has prison gotten worse in any other way other than the government pushing free narcotics onto the prison population to deliberately increase crime and elevate recidivism?
W – Other things are worse too, way worse. We have a whole new breed of officers. Disrespect is a real thing. Our officers are so fucking disrespectful. Sure some inmates are too, but staff are supposed to be professional and they aren’t. The officers are disrespectful kids.
SI – Why do you think they are increasingly disrespectful?
W – Because they can be. Because the higher ups want them to be disrespectful and reward them for it. It’s crazy. The admins are pretending to kind to us and the yard cops are getting more evil. Admin wants them like that so they have their disrespectful backs.
SI – Do you think admin or security is more disrespectful? (Admin are cops that wear plain clothes and work in offices, security are cops that wear uniforms and some have offices but most do not.)
W – Admin. Because Admin loves shitting on us but they do it with a smile.
SI – What do you think we could do to make it better?
W – Nothing. Nothing we can do. If we complain, or our families complain, they get extra credit. They get praised for harming us. You see the rapists go under investigation for a few weeks and then they make sergeant. They get in trouble, they get promoted. There’s nothing we can do. This is their sick system. We ask when we see them if they were on vacation or under investigation and they laugh.
SI – What do you think it will take for inmates to work together?
W – We need a new batch of old school inmates. I don’t think that’s possible because there are not enough of us.
SI – Do you think we can help the kids to not keep coming back to prison?
W – Some have potential to be helped. Maybe a peer-to-peer type thing where each OG takes on a kid to help, to teach? Maybe we could help them not come back? It’s that fucking suboxone. We can’t help the kids while the State is forcing them into opiate addiction. Plus, most OGs are not doing much, it’s like no body cares anymore. Is sad. It’s like everyone is retired.
SI – Why are so many retired?
W – Because time. Just time. Everybody gets tired of dumb shit. Most are just trying to do the time. It’s hard. Most just don’t want to be bothered. Doing time hurts, it wears us down, it gives us a little hopelessness. Why help if it doesn’t matter? The State of Arizona is the biggest opiate dealer these kids have ever met, and the dope is free. How can we help the kids while they are nodding out?
SI – Do you think convicts are better than non-cons in all things?
W – Convicts are capable of truly great things. If just given another chance…if given another chance…great things.
SI – Why aren’t we doing great things in here?
W – There are no great things to do in here. The (college) degrees they offer aren’t real. Lifers can’t get em anyway. They give degrees in six months and they aren’t any good outside. They sell people false dreams in here and people are set up to fail.
SI – What do you think we need to help each other more in here?
W – Nothing. We just need to do it. We don’t need anything from anyone. The rats all want rooms up front to teach in and special shit. They want paints and they want this and they want that. We need to just do it. We need to stop asking cops for shit and just do what we need to do. We have to just start. We have to just do it. If they are mad for us trying to help then fuck them. We need to just help people. It makes more sense to ask for forgiveness than to waste twenty years trying to get permission.
SI – I agree. What do you think we could teach each other…if secret classes were ever started?
W – I don’t know. Important shit. Not sure what …?
SI – If there were secret classes do you think people would be able to open them up? Do you think people would tell if they knew?
W – Yes, they’d tell. Santa Cruz is full of snitches. They’d have to keep it super low key.
SI – Since we have lived on both Lumley and Cruz, and the cultures are so different, do you think there are social experiments happening?
W – Not experiments like that. They are far too stupid for that shit. But CIU, the internal police, and SSU… they live here.
SI – Weta, what the hell do you mean “they live here”?
W – They live here. On the yard with us. Angel, they live with us. They pretend to be troubled inmates so they get moved around a lot. They are on the yards. Cops in orange. They aren’t just rats. They are always in the yard office and programs taking a fucking break. They are cops.
SI – Maybe your paranoid?
W – You are calling someone paranoid?
SI – Good point.
W – They are living with us, getting high, going to chow, taking classes. Remember Kramer and Hegglar and…. that crazy short one…
SI – Lutz.
W – Yeah! Lutz! Remember they used to dress up and run around the yards in orange jumpsuits?
SI – We knew them though.
W – Everybody didn’t. And some of these bitches have 3-8 month sentences all the sudden! How the hell do these brand new #s, never been down, 20 something years old, with non dangerous crimes get classified as Medium Custody? They are fucking cops!
SI – For what? The prison is giving out the opiates. What are they looking for Weta?
W – They are researching how we live. This shit that’s going on is not normal. Even for prison. None of it. The spicers and the shermheads and the fucking zombies on the free State dope. They’ve re-addicted people who have been sober over 20 years that had no business doing it again. And then they’ve created thousands of brand new addicts. When people drop dirty at Medical they don’t tell the cops because of HIPPA so they just secretly addict the whole world.
SI – Our space is limited…tell me one thing you want in your cell if you could have anything?
W – Just regular shit. My shit. Arts and crafts and stuffed animals made from socks. A little bear. Why does a stuffed bear have to be contraband when the prison is slanging dope?
SI – What’s the first thing you’ll do when you get out?
W – Visit my son’s grave. He died in prison in Iowa.
SI – Close your interview.
W – People who care, please never give up fighting for us from the outside. Loving us is like loving the Dallas Cowboys. Just hold on. Shit will get better next year.

ANONYMOUS INMATE INTERVIEW 
 Shajiyah Imam interviewing an inmate ("I/M") in Perryville in 2025. I/M would like to not be identified.
SI - This interview will be on unnatural-life.org and a lot of people will see it.
I/M - OK.
SI - How long have you been incarcerated?
I/M - Since 2013.
SI - What is your sentence?
I/M - 27 years flat.
SI - How many other prisons have you been in?
I/M - Zero. I've only done this 12 years.
SI - How old are you now?
I/M - Over 50.
SI - What surprised you the most about prison?
I/M - That bad behaviour is rewarded. When I came to prison I had spent time in jail prior to coming here. I was very optimistic that I could be an asset in many ways in DOC, knowing I would be a good inmate. With bad inmates Officers give in after a while only wanting a "problem" to disappear and the inmate that is bad gets rewarded with whatever they wanted in the first place. I came in as a highly educated individual and felt I could be an asset to both DOC and to other inmates. Despite never having gone to school in the U.S. I passed Mandatory Testing (and 8th grade equivalency test). My highschool and college educations were completed in Europe. I've never been able to get a decent job nor certain education in here due to the fact that DOC won't accept my translated transcripts even though they are official documents. I've done everything asked of me. I've jumped through all the hoops. DOC finally said after 7 years that since Europe doesn't have highschool through 12th grade my highschool won't be allowed. Most countries end highschool at 9th grade and them you go to college. The prison also surprises me in the way inmates are treated by DOC staff and Medical staff. Both treat us as liars and unredeemable. They often feel that we should suffer in various ways. The officers lie to us constantly and often treat us with disrespect. They talk down to us and belittle us. My experience was on the second day I was here when walking to Mandatory Testing. I was nervous about testing since I had not gone to school in the US and I had no formal education for 25 years, so before heading to testing I needed to use the restroom. I asked the officer if I could please use the restroom and she said, "You're wasting my fucking time already!" I'd never been to prison before so it shocked me how she talked to me. The next day I went to pill call to get my antidepressant medication and the officer asked to see into my mouth. He started laughing at me and said, "Look at that little gross nub!" He was referring to my one chipped tooth. Mind you, I had beautiful teeth that I had spent a lot of money on. I became very sad because I couldn't believe in my wildest dreams people would ever talk to me like that. These are just 2 examples of hundreds over the years. There's just too many to mention. This place does not try to make us better people. I have become very angry over the years because of the lack of empathy and lack of compassion from officers.
SI - What do you think contributes to our officers' bad behavior?
I/M - Once in a while you will find an officer that will treat you with respect and compassion. But those officers do not usually last due to their own conflicting feelings with how DOC generally treats us. Sometimes regular CO lls (the low ranking officers who work the yards) are treated like shit as well from the higher ups.
SI - What do you think should change about prison?
I/M - Just because we have some classes that "should" teach us how not to come back to prison and how to become better inmates doesn't mean that it happens. As long as DOC's mentality is such that each day in here should be punishment and suffering recidivism will stay among the highest in the world. Just because officers are taking their "charm classes" nothing will change. DOC must actually learn and believe that inmates should be treated humanely. There needs to be an attitude change within DOC before anything can change. Even if the occasional officer have a mindset when they start to work at DOC that they want us inmates to become better people, the other 99% of officers make sure that officer either changes to be more in line with them or quits.
SI - Have you hear about prison abolition?
I/M - Yes.
SI - What do you think about it?
I/M - Prisons need to be abolished as the main mode of addressing problems that can be much better solved by other institutions, or by very different means. As a society nothing can be solved by more police or mass incarceration. The effort to abolish prison can only succeed by opposing the radicalized fears that are rationalized and legitimized in the State. Those who can profit manipulate the fears of the ignorant to make them think prisons are necessary. They clearly are not. I believe the first step has to be to change the mind of the public. Serious reform would be very simple, abolition not so simple. Scandinavian prisons have proven ways that reduce recidivism. I believe the vicious cycles of inequitable access to free education, health services, meaningful employment and housing is what creates mass incarceration of these epic proportions in the US.
SI - What do you think of people stopping at reform, but wanting us all still caged like animals?
I/M - They don't believe prison should cause so much suffering. It is at least a start even if they don't think we are good enough to be free. Prison reform is maybe all lawmakers can do?
SI - How do you feel about seeing the young kids continue to come back?
I/M - I feel a lot of complex emotions knowing what I know today. A lot of them don't stand a chance given their own complicated family structures and situations. What I do know is that DOC does nothing for them to help them succeed in the world. I am spending another 15 years here after this 12 and initially when people are here once and then come back I got frustrated with them because all I wanted was a second chance to life out there. Now it just makes me so sad because I see there is no real help for any of them. No real help is ever really available for them in here and not easily accessible out there.
SI - What do you think it would take for women to work together in here?
I/M - It is a very good question, one that I think of often. I feel that us women has so much potential individually and collectively that it truly befuddles me that so few wants to stand for what is right. I don't have a good answer for that one.
SI - You smoke cigarettes yes?
I/M - Yes.
SI - And you are in the smoking section often with a lot of women right? It's a very social area to spend time in?
I/M - Yes. The most social area in this prison.
SI - From what you have heard over the years in the smoking section what is the main reason women do not want to engage in activities that will improve the community?
I/M - It goes back to how we were raised as girls. It goes back to how society treats us compared to men. And really important, it has to do with how we were treated personally by men. These woman are codependent, that's their problem. They will latch onto anyone who will take care of them. A lot of them have no support from their families. Their families just don't care enough about them to help them. Families like to pretend like we have everything we need in here. These women are just alone, left in here alone. They don't even know where to start.
SI - What do you mean by codependency in this setting?
I/M - I mean when these women get their happiness through other people. They are only happy when they can do something for that person. Thet is their only gratification. Most women are codependent. Most nurses are, I was. Let's use Annie over there as an example. Look at Annie. She has had everything done for her and she doesn't know how to take care of herself. She needs to be with someone to take care of her. She is absolutely helpless. There should be codependency classes in here. Long ass codependency classes. I believe 95% of these women are codependent. I believe 95% of these women are in prison for being codependent on men.
SI - Do you think women would take the codependency classes if they were offered?
I/M - The ones that are ready would. And those at rock bottom with nowhere else to go. The youngsters coming up don't know they are codependent yet. They still think they are being a good friend or that they are in love. When I first got here I'd give my last cigarette...I'd give the shirt off my back. I've found my voice now though. I think there would definitely be enough people to sustain the class.
SI - Who could teach this class? An inmate? Staff?
I/M - No. Nobody that is all screwed up themselves. We need a professional, a psychologist who can delve in deep, someone with experience with prisoners. We would need someone who knows the type of history women prisoners have like rape and all sorts of abuse. And neglect. If families neglect people now, it is clear they did back then too. Women in prison always suffer constant abuse and trauma. Codependency is such a fundamental thing in prison. They know they can't isolate these issues. They pretend to treat drug addiction but they ignore everything else. Codependency and trauma are the root of our problems.
SI - Do you think codependency and trauma treatment would reduce recidivism?
I/M - Absolutely!
SI - Do you think ADC does not offer those classes because they do not really want recidivism reduced?
I/M - I am not that cynical. I want to believe people care. The system is bad. Sentencing runs in cycles. I do believe prison is a money maker...but... Sometimes it isn't that bad. I am just not that cynical.
SI - Would you like to be?
I/M - (laughs) Well... I do question why Arizona treats us so much worse than other states. It just boggles my mind...when I got sentenced the people from the Embassy in my country told me for the same crime I would have gotten 10 or less in California. At home in my country I would have done 1-3 years. I had a house, a job, a life. This is insane.
SI - Do you have family here?
I/M - No, they are all in Europe.
SI - Can you go there to do your time?
I/M - I tried. Chuck Ryan said "No". Tom Lerla who was in charge of Operations back then and tried to help me. He wrote a letter of recommendation and talked with my country's Embassy and he thought I would go home but Chuck Ryan wrote me a letter that said, "Fuck no." Well, not really but basically that's what he said.
SI - Will you try under Thornell?
I/M - Yes, we are working on it. My family is there. In my country prisoners get to go home for vacations.
SI - If you could have one thing in your cell what would it be?
I/M - A mattress. An amazing matters. A mattress made for a female body with pressure points and stuff.
SI - Like "Law Abiding Citizen"?
I/M - I love that movie!
SI - How do you want to close?
I/M - If DOC would help women visualize better lives, and help women realize they can succeed it would help them stay out. There is a different way. Portugal reduced recidivism by 30% by teaching their prisoners how to be free. Show them a different way to be, to live, and they'll do better. They'll have to fight for it, but they can stay free.

INTERVIEW JAX AND YANNI

This is interview with Yadira “Yanni” Cerrano #358847 and Jacklyn “Jax Buntin” #297139 was done on August 20th 2025 beginning 6:20 a.m. in the smoking section of C Yard on Santa Cruz Unit.
Shajiyah – You both know this interview will be on our unnatural-life.org site anyone will be able to see it including our pork. Is that OK?
Jax – Absolutely.
Yanni – Fuck ’em.
S – Where are you guys going? Last night the numbers of the yards they said you were going to didnt make any sense, was anybody able to tell you what Unit you were going to? (Areas of prisons have codes, C Yard on Santa Cruz is B03, they were told they were going to B42).
Jax – I am going to Pie-Rosa. (Minimum Units Piestawa and Santa Rosa are often referred to as a combined Unit due to their proximity to each other).
Yanni – I am going to Carlos. I’ll be right back! (Yanni had some last minute business to handle before moving).
S – How do you feel Jackie?
Jax – I’m nervous.
S – Why are you nervous?
Jax – Because I still have a little time to do and I don’t know anybody over there. I was kind of comfortable here. I know everybody here. There are no abolitionists there.
S – Go make some.
Jax – (laughs) I will do my best. I’ll teach them what I know now. I’m just nervous. I’ve never been there you know?
S – Yeah, that’s always rough. How much time do you have left?
Jax – 3 years.
S – What are your plans as far as helping my daughter with unnatural-life and other people trying to further the knowledge we have been given?
Jax – That answer depends on who will be asking? (Laughs)
S – Let me ask something else. How do you feel about the work we have been doing? Do you think it matters?
Jax – Absolutely. I feel very strongly about the work weve been doing and I loved working with you. I feel that we as convicts are so much better than we are treated, in here and after we get out. There are so many things we need to know to do this thing. There is so much we are capable of. The cops smile and say nice words all the sudden but we know…we know…you know? We remember who they were under a Director that let them…Besides all that, this shit we are doing to the earth…
S – The earth?
Jax – I read some of that environmental ethics stuff you gave me about what we are doing to the earth and I can’t believe it. And i saw some stuff on History last night. Did the earth break laws and need to be destroyed like us? You know how everything ties in together?
S – Yeah, I do.
Jax – We need to become one with the earth and people will stop treating other people like this. This shit is unnatural. None of this shit is OK Linda. (Jax says Linda a lot to everyone. I don’t know why). If people become one with the earth then this government shit will fall.
S – Clarify who needs to become one with the earth for the government to fall? No, just define what exactly you mean by one with the earth?
Jax – One with the earth, like listening to her, treating her with respect and not destroying her, living with her and not against her. It would cure oppression. This shit has to be done on so many levels from so many angles. Those ones wouldn’t be good fertilizer anyway.
S – The worst fertilizer. Disrespectful too the trees.
Jax – I think what we are doing in here matters. I think our perceptions and opinions matter. I think we are contributing what we can. It is very hard in here.
S – Do you think you personally could be a prison abolitionist with no respect for the earth?
Jax – No. It doesn’t make sense. Like you stopping eating meat the day you found out they were burning the trees to grow cattle. When we learn something we have to do something. Prison abolition is about respecting life, period. Abolition means doing away with the government.
S – That’s the other A word. This isn’t that interview.
Jax – OK… People oppressing people with government support. The government is a weapon against us all. Something new has to overthrow it so we can be free of this system and we and the earth can be free. The Christians want to stomp down and subdue everything, us and the earth.
Yanni – We need to connect more with people. We need to connect more with people who can do something about this shit.
S – Welcome back.
Yanni – These old buildings. Look at this shit! Look at the concrete falling! Look at all that mold down there. This shit is ridiculous. This land could be used for something else.
S – How do you feel about leaving Yanni?
Yanni – Its bullshit that they are splitting us up. Even me and Jax. We are all getting split up. I’m nervous. I have anxiety. You know? I’m an hour away from being alone again. We don’t know what these motherfuckers are doing. I’m nervous.
Carmen – (She had walked up to the table to tell them goodbye just then) You’ll meet up again.
S – How much time do you have Yanni?
Yanni – 60 days to the Gate. October 22nd.
S – What are your street plans?
Yanni – I have a better plan than the other times. I understand myself better. I understand the system better. I feel excited to leave. I did it right this time. I feel motivated.
Jax – I am going to New Freedom and I am going to get work as a peer support. Ill be able to talk to a lot of people.
S – Gather drops for the wave?
Jax – Drops for the wave. I am really good at what I do. I am a networker in every walk of life. Now I have a bigger purpose. Hopefully I will succeed at the end of the day.
S – InshaaAllah. Do you plan to travel?
Yanni – I want to go see what they are doing in Tuscon. At that place we read about in the meetings. The safety place. Where they are communing like the book. I want to stay a night there. I want to see. I want to be around those people.
Jax – Addicts are my focus. I just want to be around addicts.
S – To protect people from shaming recovery?
Jax – Yes. You see power for change in convicts like I see power for change in addicts.
S – We got a little overlap…
Jax – I will do the opposite of shaming. There’s nothing wrong with being who and where you are. I want to give people tools wherever they are in life. To do what they want. If they want to get clean, great. If they don’t, great. I want to be there for them. People shouldn’t be treated like shit no matter what. Maybe some aren’t in a place where they are ready to be clean? That’s nobody’s business. And people should be protected from coming to prison just because they want to get high.
S – If you are rich you dont go to prison for getting high.
Yanni – Fuck em. These pigs say they want the best four us and they want us to do good but we fucking know they need us in here or they have no job. Fuck their words! We see what the fuck they do! Refuckinghabilitation ain’t no real shit. They fucking lie about everything.
S – They say they want us to stay free then complain because they can’t get a raise. Bad fertilizer.
Jax – We are really not much different, in some ways, than slaves. So many profit off our imprisonment. They tell us we need to behave and treat us like children or idiots and almost all of us are smarter than them. Their programs group us all in together, as if just because we are in orange we all have the same ideas, goals, problems, or whatever. People get tossed away. Like we are garbage. They say we deserve this for doing bad things? Prison is not about that. It’s all about money. These plantations, their halfway houses, probation and parole…all of it. Money.
(Officer Parra called for them to go to the V Gate to leave)
S – What is one thing you would want in your cell?
Yanni – A toaster oven!
Jax – Not inside my cell but a tiny little store where we could get clothes and make up.
(Walking to the V Gate. Different discussion)

INTERVIEW NEGRA

Shajiyah Iman interviewing Sarah Negra Hernandez #175510 on Santa Cruz Unit in C22-09 at 1345.
SI – I need to tell you this interview will be public on Unnatural-Life.org. Everyone who wants to will be able to see it. Is that OK?
N – Yes, that’s OK. Can you give it to me? The site?
SI – Yeah, I’ll write it down.. Here. Where have you done time previously?
N – Gattsville, Texas from 2000-2003.
SI – So how did you get this number?
(Asking because our numbers run chronologically and old numbers signify a person has been here a long time and technically Negra should be a new number being a new convict in Perryville. 3 numbers are ADC #s beginning in 3s are new numbers until the 4s start. People who have old numbers but have not actually done a lot of time are still considered “new numbers”. People who do less that ten years are “Short Timers”).
N – After I did my time in Texas I was paroled to Arizona in 2003, and Arizona gave me this number, but this is my first time down here.
SI – You were free from 2003 until 2020…so you are a new number even though you have a 1 number?
N – Yeah.
SI – Were they both violent crimes?
N – Yeah.
SI – What do you find different between doing time in Arizona and Texas?
N – Structure. There is much more structure there. Everything is on a stricter schedule there.
SI – Did you find living without structure difficult when you got out?
N – It was hard at first. But it was good to be without it. It’s hard to forget for a while about inside. The structure stays in your head.
SI – Have you been on Lumley?
N – No. In Texas you have to do things very different. Staff are really different and you have to say yes ma’am no ma’am yes sir no sir.
SI – Is it better or worse here?
N – Better.
SI – Why?
N – Cigarettes.
SI – They didn’t smoke in Texas in 2000?
N – No. Were late here.
SI – Do you think you will not smoke when you get out? Since cigarettes will be banned in a few days you’ll have 3 years without smoking…?
N – I might smoke again. I don’t know? Its a lot. It costs a lot to smoke. Maybe I will quit?
SI – When do you get out and what will you do?
N – I get out May of 28 and I tell you what, I am never coming back to prison. I am leaving Arizona. I’m going to get the hell out of here.
SI – Do you think you’ll go to prison in another state?
N – No. I hope not.
SI – What do you think could be done to help us all get along better in here?
N – We all get along OK. All of our races get along in here. In Texas only same races can stick together. We are doing better than that here.
SI – What do you think the biggest problem is in here?
N – Mandatory.
(Mandatory is a Program that mandates every inmate pass an eighth grade equivalency test before they can do several thing like make more than .10 an hour or raise from a Phase 1 to a Phase 2. Being a Phase 1 means you cant get moves from cell to cell if your cell is hostile or dangerous, all commissary, visits, phone calls are restricted. It also prevents people from leaving after serving 85% of their time. Without getting the Mandatory (passing the test) they have to serve 100%.)
SI – Do you take any of the ASU classes offered up front?
N – No. The Mandatory keeps me from taking other classes. It keeps us from doing better whenever we get out. Without having to go through the Mandatory program I would already be working on my Associates so I could have something when I get out.
(Rio Salado College and Ashland University offer Associates and Bachelor Degree Distance Learning programs for prisoners with out- dates (nonLifers) and they can complete 6-8 credit hours per semester (2 courses per semester) depending on pell grants and scholarship funding availability. Bachelors programs are mostly self-pay.)
SI – There are some classes you can attend without it to learn even if you don’t get credit.
N – I didn’t know that. I do have my GED so it’s stupid that I have to wait to pass the Mandatory to take classes. It’s sad. There is no Mandatory on the outs, it should be against the law. They should ban that shit. We should all get our 85%. We shouldn’t have to leave on our second date.
SI – Explain that.
N – For every 7 days we serve we get 1 day on Parole. Mandatory steals those days. Texas was better.
SI – You said Arizona was better a minute ago?
N – They all suck. My cousin killed a cop.
SI – Is he OK?
N – Yeah, he’s fine. That’s him right there. (Points to a fine Mexican man clearly in a Federal prison photo.)
SI – Nice.
N – You want to write him?
SI – No, Negra. I don’t.
N – He’d love it if you wrote him.
SI – No. He wouldn’t.
N – He’s doing Life too. He’s got three Lifes.
SI – Concurrent? Have you been disrespected by cops Negra?
N – You are a Lifer. Do you think about escape? If I was a Lifer I would escape.
SI – No. I don’t think about it.
N – Why not? I would.
SI – Negra. We can see the freeway from here. Do you know how many of those cars I know how to steal?
N – No.
SI – None of them. The cars I know how to steal are literally antiques. I don’t even know how to start a car. There are buttons and FOBs? It is a new world. I would be lost in it. There are pig-drones, and robot-pig-dogs, and cameras in doorbells. The Marshals have new toys. There’s facial recognition everywhere. I think it would be very selfish and stupid to escape. There’s work to be done here. Do the cops disrespect you Negra?
N – Yes. There’s one here who gave me my ticket on Carlos (Minimum Unit) that got me sent here. It was an “Unwitnessed Fight” and he gave me 57 points. Have you ever heard of 57 points for a B ticket? (most B tickets carry low points, 57 is extreme. Points affect classification/ where we live as far as Minimum, Medium, Maximum).
SI – Did you get snitched on?
N – Yes. The bitch told on me. Now my back score is too high. I’m a 3-4. From one ticket. A 3-4 from one fight! That’s disrespectful!
(We are graded by a front score is our Classification -5 being Max, 4 being Closed Custody, 3 being Medium and 2 Minimum. Back score reflects our ‘threat-to-others assessment’, 5 is high – 1 is low.)
SI – Have you seen the pig who did that since you moved?
N – Yes. He told me to tuck my shirt in and I told him “Fuck you!”
SI – Have you ever beat a ticket?
N – No. This was the only one I ever even got and I tried to appeal. I failed. I lost four good days (off of 85%). I have a really old number, I’ve never been a big problem, that should matter. This ticket could have taken me to Lumley.
(Lumley has Medium Custody, Closed Custody, Death Row, Lumley Detention Unit (LDU) and The Program which is a housing area for some SMI (Seriously Mentally Ill) convicts.)
SI – What do you want to do when you get out?
N – I want to see my Dad and my kids. I really messed up this last time and I don’t know how long it’ll be until I get to see any of them. After I shot that guy in the car and did that time for that I messed up really bad and then the Feds hit the house. I miss them. I hope my Dad will see me, and let me see my kids. I really messed up.
SI – Can you think of anything that could have actually helped you instead of prison?
N – I don’t know. Helped me? Instead of this?
SI – Can you imagine a more humane way of dealing with people than putting people in cages?
N – I never thought of that. No prisons?
SI – Do you think there is a way to help people, or deter crime, instead of putting us in here?
N – I never thought about that. That’s cool.
SI – What is one thing you would want, if you could have anything, in your cell?
N – Video games like for Play Station or whatever. And to be able to buy games for it. I could play games for hours.
SI – Do you think that would help you stay out?
N – I don’t know, but it would help me pass the time.
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POEMS

Souls – by Crystal Carimbocas

Round and round…
A vicious cycle of despair
A marry go round of trapped anguish.
Revolving door
Of doors
Entering and exiting the same door…
Numbers of captive souls getting higher
Investors benefit,swimming in a ocean of funds.
All planned out for our expected,dreadful failure…
Our souls
Their safety deposit box
Set up in their money bank.
Our lives ruined for their greedy disgusting gain.
Non – existent is their conscious

Non – existent.
We as humans…
As they reap and dig for souls
In their lens,piles of heaping dollars.
As they soundly sleep peacefully
Drifting away into a blissful dream of filthy stained dirty wealth.
Our souls doubled over in catastrophic desperation
Dodging the past
Clawing away at their reeking stained empty hearts
Breathing in the toxic air that has a stifling hold on us
Cutting our air off
Forcefully pushing us down…
Tightening its beastly slimly grip
On our minds
Crushing our spirits
On our souls
Sucking our hearts dry
Pumping in this silenced void of colossal darkness
Capsuled vessels of contamination.
Voiceless…
Segregated
Held captive from the world.
Labeled forever as “living – breathing flesh”.
Free or not.
Freedom being permanently non – existent
Blotted out from our minds
But not from our hearts…
As we sleep
As we wake
The toxic air
Hold us.
It will never
Hold us down…

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RESOURCES

tell your people in prison these places send free books to us. request the type of books
you want by subject. anticarceral, anticapitalist, antifascist requests are exceptionally
fun reads!

Haymarket Books
P.O. Box 180165
Chicago Illinois 60618

Prison Library Project
915-C W. Foothill BLVD PMB 128
Claremont CA 91711

Prisoners Literature Project
c/o Bound Together Books
1369 Haight Street
San Francisco CA 94117

Chicago Books to Women In Prison
4511 N. Heritage Ave
Chicago IL 06040

Women’s Prison Book Project
3751 17th Ave S.
Minneapolis MN 55407

Prison Book Program
c/o Lucy Parson’s Bookstore
1306 Hancock St
Quincy MA 02169

Books Thru Bars
c/o Blue Stocking Bookstore
1116 Suffolk Street
New York NY 10002

• if you have any people inside who are HIV positive these people send their magazine
  free to convicts
  POZ Magazine
  157 Columbus Ave Ste 525
  New York NY 10001
• if you want to send money to help Palestine send it to

SkatePal BDS boycott, divestments and sanctions

• these people send free books to trans people in prison…
  Tranzmission Prison Books
  P.O. Box 1874
  Asheville NC 28802
• these jews will not respond to any direct questions…
  The Aleph Institute
  9540 Collins Ave
  Surfside FL 33154
• if you have people in prison in Arizona and the pigs are harassing, tormenting, or
  attempting to drive your people to suicide you can complain by repeatedly calling…
  Central Office 866- 333-2039
  Perryville 623- 853- 0304
  Current Director Ryan Thornell seems to want to care for his capital in the ways he can.
• ISLAMIC INFO…
  read
  Islam and Anarchism: Relationships and Resonances by Mohamed Abdou

Being Muslim, A Cultural History of Women of Color in American Islam by Sylvia
Chan-Malik

Read everything you can find by Dr Kyla Pasha

Correspondence studies available for convicts, Muslim and Non Muslim, who want to
learn about Islam are available through:
Tayba Foundation
PO Box 1154
Portsmouth NH 03802-1154
(501) 491-7859

Link Outside
1220 N. State College BLVD
Anaheim CA 92806

Beware of Mantle of Mercy’s Seher Ebrahim and her alignments with prison
administrators and others against Muslim convicts.

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